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New asthma data: Minority Americans still hit hardest

Respiratory Care Weekly, April 12, 2006

According to numbers from several asthma studies published in the February Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the disease still strikes and kills members of ethnic minority communities more often than white Caucasians. The medical system, however, isn't teaching minority populations how to manage their symptoms very well, the studies said. The following statistics outline some of the results in the studies in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

* One study showed that asthma prevalence is highest for Puerto Rican Americans (13.1%), followed by Native Americans (9.9%), and non-Hispanic blacks (9.5%).

* A second study showed that asthma mortality for whites increased from the 1980-1984 time period to 2000-2001 time period from 2.1 to 2.6 deaths per 1,000,000 population. During the same time, the mortality rate for African-Americans increased from 9.9 to 13.2 deaths per 1,000,000 population.

* A third study of asthmatics on Medicare shows that black children had worse asthma status and less use of preventive medication than white children. Fewer black adults also reported receiving asthma self-management education.

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