The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice
Original ArticleTrends in Hospitalizations and Mortality From Asthma in Costa Rica Over a 12- to 15-year Period
Section snippets
Methods
As part of the Costa Rican nationwide health care system, the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social collects complete information on all hospitalizations and deaths that occur at public hospitals or health care centers (which care for approximately 4.5 million people). Information on hospitalizations and deaths due to asthma (as coded by the treating physicians) as well as prescriptions for 3 medications (beclomethasone, montelukast, and formoterol) approved by the Caja Costarricense del Seguro
Results
Between 1997 and 2011, there were 56,002 hospitalizations for asthma in Costa Rica. Of these 56,002 hospitalizations, 35,714 (64%) were for subjects younger than 20 years. The total number of asthma hospitalizations in Costa Rica in both children and adults decreased by approximately 53% from 1997 (n = 5207) to 2011 (n = 2459). The sex-adjusted rates of hospitalizations for asthma in Costa Rica in the 3 age groups from 1997 to 2011 are shown in Figure 1. Although the sex-adjusted rate of asthma
Discussion
We found substantial reductions in the rate of hospitalizations for and deaths due to asthma in Costa Ricans over a 12- to 15-year period (1997-2000 to 2011). Whereas, the percentage decrement in the rates of hospitalization for asthma in subjects 20 years old and younger was similar before and after implementation of the NAP, both the percentage reduction in the total number of deaths due to asthma in older subjects (either >35 years old or >40 years old) and the percentage decrement in the
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Cited by (0)
J. C. Celedón's contribution to this work was supported by grants HL073373, HL079966, and HL117191 from the US National Institutes of Health and by an endowment from the Heinz Foundation.
Conflicts of interest: J. C. Celedón has received research support from the National Institutes of Health, has received consultancy fees from Genentech, and has received royalties from UpToDate. The rest of the authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.