Asthma increases strain health care budgets

Time was, asthma was a straightforward health care condition that many sufferers outgrew by young adulthood. Not so anymore. The respiratory condition has been building in frequency and durability in recent decades, and currently ranks as a common ailment. Now, a recent study is giving health care providers an idea of just how common it is, and the picture is alarming. Almost eight percent of Americans have asthma, representing an increase of about 0.5 percent every three years, according to the study. Results were scheduled to be presented Tuesday at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology annual meeting in New Orleans.

Interestingly, the asthma study coincided this week with a report by the Rand Corporation that tallied how much California's failure to enforce air quality standards is costing the state in health care costs. Rand, which released the study Tuesday, estimates that air pollution caused nearly 30,000 emergency hospital visits and admissions over the time period from 2005 to 2007 in California. Public health programs, including Medicare, picked up more than two-thirds of the estimated $200-million in health care costs. More than one-third of the hospital visits were for children aged 17 and under who suffered asthma attacks, the researchers noted.

"California's failure to meet air pollution standards causes a large amount of expensive hospital care," study author and Rand economist John Romley said in a news release. "The result is that insurance programs -- both those run by the government and private payers -- face higher costs because of California's dirty air."

No one has to convince me. I have asthma but am lucky: My disease is well controlled, and I am even trying to reduce my reliance on medications by boosting my consumption of foods with anti-inflammatory power, like apples, onions and raspberries. Some of my students aren't so lucky; they hit their rescue inhalers several times a day and spend the first five minutes of class wheezing if they had to walk up the stairs to get there. I teach in the Bronx. The Bronx is surrounded by massive commuter highways leading into the city and, not surprisingly, has one of the highest asthma rates in the country. Student absenteeism is equally high.

I know much attention is focused these days on childhood obesity, and rightly so. It's reaching epidemic status and threatens to erode our future health care system. Yet any pediatrician will tell you that a key to reducing obesity is exercise, and here's where urban kids and others living near freeways have another strike against them. Their ability to exercise may be hampered by asthma and air quality. No disease is an island; we can't hope to harness one if we ignore others that affect or complicate the target disease. But a good step would be to demand that states like California meet the air quality standards that have been set to protect the health of our people and ensure the viability of our health care infrastructure. Think about it: A handful of people harmed or killed was enough to trigger an auto recall so massive it may undo a corporate superpower. Shouldn't thousands of people harmed and killed each year due to unchecked auto exhaust be worth a recall of something?

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Asthma Helper