A longitudinal study of the prevalence of asthma in a community population of school-age children.
OBJECTIVE
Using a unique county-wide resource that links all health care providers' medical records to assess current and "ever" prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma. To describe the age and sex rates and temporal trends in new asthma diagnoses and associations with race and socio-economic status.


METHODS
A longitudinal retrospective evaluation of a population-based cohort of school children using linked medical and school records.


RESULTS
Overall, 17.6% of children in grades kindergarten through 12 had a physician diagnosis of asthma and 12.9% had an asthma-related visit within the past 2 years. An additional 19.7% had visits for reactive airway disease or recurrent wheezing or bronchospasm with no diagnosis of asthma. Children provided with free and reduced-cost lunches had lower cumulative and incident asthma rates from birth through their current school age. Race was not related to rates of physician-diagnosed asthma. There was a significant temporal increase in rates of new asthma diagnoses.


CONCLUSIONS
In this community, 1 in 3 children have had a physician-documented recurrent wheezing-type illness, and 1 in 6 were diagnosed with asthma. Diagnoses rates were directly related to socioeconomic status.
Yawn
Barbara P
BP
Department of Research, Olmsted Medical Center, Rochester, Minnesota 55904, USA.
Wollan
Peter
P
Kurland
Marge
M
Scanlon
Paul
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008910:Minnesota / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis