US Asthma Rate Reaches All Time High

From the LA Times: "The proportion of Americans with asthma increased from 7.3% in 2001 to 8.4% in 2010, marking the highest level ever, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. In 2010, an estimated 18.7 million adults and 7 million children had the disease — one in every 12 Americans. Overall, about 29.1 million adults have been diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives, but many of those were misdiagnosed or have apparently recovered, leading to the current figure of 18.7 million. Children (9.5%) had a higher asthma prevalence than adults (7.7%), suggesting that the disease will become a bigger problem in the future. Females (9.2%) had a higher prevalence than males (7%). People of multiple race had an incidence of 14.1%, while Asians had the lowest (5.2%). Blacks were at 11.2%, while whites were at 7.7%. Hispanics of Puerto Rican descent had the highest prevalence, 16.1%. Death rates were highest for women, blacks and people over the age of 65. In 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, asthma accounted for 3,388 deaths in the United States, 479,300 hospitalizations, 1.9 million ER visits and 8.9 million visits to physicians' offices, the CDC said. The estimated costs to society were $50.1 billion per year due to medical expenses, $3.8 billion resulting from missing work and school, and $2.1 billion from premature deaths."