Original articleInadequate Therapy and Poor Symptom Control among Children with Asthma: Findings from a Multistate Sample
Section snippets
Population and Sampling
We obtained data for this study from the 2003 State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey (SLAITS) National Asthma Survey 4-state sample, which provides parent-reported data for asthmatic children from a random-digit dial survey implemented in Alabama, California, Illinois, and Texas. This survey was conducted by the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics SLAITS survey mechanism. Details regarding the questionnaire design and methodology are available through
Results
The SLAITS National Asthma Survey included 1622 children aged <18 years with current asthma. Nine hundred seventy-five children had persistent asthma symptoms and/or were using preventive asthma medications and thus were included in this analysis (57.4% of the children with current asthma). Table I shows demographic characteristics, health care utilization, and asthma-related characteristics for the children in this sample. Most of the children were aged ≥5 years (78.7%), 55% were nonwhite, and
Discussion
This study shows that inadequate therapy for asthma remains a significant problem. A large number of children with asthma are experiencing persistent symptoms and report no use of preventive anti-inflammatory medications. These children likely are experiencing preventable morbidity. A newly highlighted and important concern is the substantial number of children who are experiencing poor symptom control despite reported use of preventive medications. We identified several potential reasons for
Acknowledgment
The research for this article was funded by grants from the Halcyon Hill Foundation and the Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (045441), both awarded to Dr. Jill Halterman. We thank George B. Segel, MD, and Kathy O’Connor, MPH, for their insightful review of the manuscript.
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