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Wisconsin Asthma Statistics

Prevalence Asthma in Government-funded Programs
Risk Factors Mortality
Asthma Management and Quality of Life Work-related Asthma
Health Care Utilization Meeting Healthy People 2010 Asthma Goals

Prevalence
Adults

  • In Wisconsin, lifetime asthma prevalence among adults increased from 10.6 percent in 2000 to 13.7 percent in 2009. Current asthma prevalence increased during the same time period from 8 to 10 percent.
  • Adult females have had higher lifetime and current asthma prevalence than adult males.
  • Among Wisconsin adults, the lifetime prevalence of asthma was nearly twice as high in non-Hispanic African Americans as in non-Hispanic whites (data aggregated from 2004-2009).

Children

  • In 2009, 9.7 percent of children in Wisconsin had been diagnosed with asthma in the past (lifetime asthma) and 6.9 percent had current asthma. The prevalence among Wisconsin children appears to be decreasing.
  • Wisconsin boys have higher lifetime asthma prevalence than girls (11.9 percent vs. 8.3 percent in 2008-2009).

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Risk Factors Associated with Asthma

  • In Wisconsin, obese adults had higher current asthma prevalence than normal weight adults in 2008-2009 (12.0 vs. 8.7 percent). A significantly higher percent of obese females reported having current asthma (15.3 percent), compared to both normal weight (9.0) and overweight (8.9) females. Among all obese adults, women reported significantly higher current asthma prevalence than men (15.3 vs. 9.2 percent).
  • In 2008-2009, Wisconsin adults with the least formal education reported the highest current asthma prevalence (13.1 percent), compared to adults with a college education (8.7 percent), although the difference was not significant.
  • Adults with the lowest annual household income in 2008-2009 (less than $15,000) reported the highest asthma prevalence (17.7 percent).
  • The prevalence of current asthma is slightly higher among adults who currently smoke (12.0 percent) than those who are "former" (9.2 percent) or "never" (8.8 percent) smokers in 2008-2009, although these differences were not significant.
  • Public middle and high school students in 2008 and 2010 who reported living with a smoker also reported a slightly higher lifetime prevalence of asthma than those who indicated that they did not live with a smoker.
  • Exposure to indoor environmental triggers varied among adults and children with current asthma (data from 2006-2009). For example, many adults and children reported having carpeting or rugs in their bedroom (72.2 and 68.5 percent, respectively). Over half of adults and children with current asthma reported allowing pets inside their home and bedroom.

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Asthma Management and Quality of Life

  • One-fourth of adults with current asthma reported being unable to carry out their usual activities because of their asthma during the last month; approximately half of all children with asthma reported missing one or more school days in the past year due to asthma
  • While a greater percentage of adults with current asthma were taught to recognize asthma symptoms (68.1 percent), what to do during an attack (77.3 percent) and how to use an inhaler (96.5 percent), only 30.6 percent of adults and 53.2 percent of children indicated that their doctor or other health care provider gave them an asthma action plan.
  • Over half of the adults with current asthma reported using a rescue medication in the last three months, while less than 40 percent reported using a long-term controller medication.
  • Only 37.3 percent of schools reported having an asthma action plan on file for all students with asthma, according to Wisconsin SHP data.
  • Adults with current asthma perceived their health status as fair or poor (21.1 percent) significantly more often than adults without asthma (11.1 percent).
  • Adults with current asthma reported diagnoses of asthma comorbidities, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (24.1 percent) and depression (26.0 percent).

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Health Care Utilization
Insurance Status and Cost of Care

  • From 2006 to 2009, approximately 7.5 percent of adults with asthma did not have health insurance coverage, whether through commercial or public plans.
  • Almost 10 percent of adults with asthma could not afford asthma medications at some point in the last year.

Hospital Emergency Department Visits

  • In 2009, there were 21,023 ED visits for asthma, costing over $23 million.
  • In Wisconsin, the overall rate of asthma ED visits per 10,000 population remained steady from 37.4 in 2006 to 38.8 in 2009.
  • By age, Wisconsin children 0-4 have the highest asthma ED visit rates at 72.2 visits per 10,000 in 2009.
  • The five counties with the highest rates of asthma ED visits per 10,000 population for 2007-2009 were Milwaukee (81.6), Menominee (68.8), Kenosha (55.6), Racine (55.4) and Sawyer (49.8).

Inpatient Hospitalizations

  • In 2009, there were a total of 5,356 hospitalizations in Wisconsin for which asthma was the principal diagnosis, costing an average of $11,791 per hospitalization.
  • Over the past fifteen years there has been a general decline in Wisconsin asthma hospitalization rates. Rates decreased from 12.0 hospitalizations per 10,000 in 1995 to 9.4 hospitalizations per 10,000 in 2009.
  • Children aged 0-4 years had the highest asthma hospitalization rate at 21.6 per 10,000 in 2009.
  • Asthma hospitalization rates in Wisconsin are five times higher in African Americans than whites (37.1 versus 6.9 per 10,000 in 2009).
  • Milwaukee County (18.0) and Menominee County (16.6) experienced the highest county-specific rates of asthma hospitalizations per 10,000 population in Wisconsin from 2007-2009.
  • Hospitalizations and ED visits in which asthma was identified as the primary diagnosis vary seasonally, with the highest number of visits occurring in the fall.

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Asthma in Government-Funded Programs
Wisconsin Medicaid Program

  • The rate of asthma hospitalizations within the Medicaid population between 2007 and 2009 was over three times greater than the rate of hospitalizations among the general population in Wisconsin during the same time period.
  • Between 2007 and 2009, the rate of asthma ED visits for children under 5 years of age was the highest, compared to the rates for older children and adults. Approximately 1.5 percent of all Medicaid recipients had an ED visit for asthma annually.
  • Approximately 73 percent of Wisconsin Medicaid recipients 5 to 56 years old with persistent asthma received appropriate medication for long-term control of asthma from 2007 to 2009.

Wisconsin WIC Program

  • The prevalence of asthma among all women in the WIC program in October 2010 was 2.4 percent and was higher among pregnant women than postpartum women (2.6 vs. 2.2 percent); African American pregnant and postpartum women had higher asthma prevalence than white women.
  • Exposure to risk factors for asthma (smoking tobacco, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), obesity and depression) was associated with higher asthma prevalence in both pregnant and postpartum women.
  • The prevalence of asthma among children under 5 years in the WIC program was 2.8 percent; African American children had an asthma prevalence that was three times higher than that of white children (6.0 vs. 2.1 percent).
  • Exposure to ETS was associated with higher asthma prevalence in children, compared to children without the exposure (3.4 vs. 2.8 percent).
  • Being overweight at 24 months of age or older was associated with higher asthma prevalence than children who were not overweight (4.0 vs. 2.7 percent).
  • Ever having been breastfed was associated with lower asthma prevalence, compared to the prevalence of children who were never breastfed.

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Mortality

  • Between 2000 and 2008 there were approximately 70 deaths per year in Wisconsin for which asthma was the underlying cause. Additionally, an average of 165 deaths per year during this time period listed asthma as a contributing cause of death.
  • Over the past decade, there has been a general decline in asthma mortality in Wisconsin from 15.7 deaths per million in 2000 to 9.3 deaths per million in 2008.
  • The six year age-adjusted mortality rates from 2003-2008 showed that African Americans were 4 times more likely to die of asthma than whites (39.7 vs. 9.7 per million).
  • The crude number of deaths and age-adjusted asthma mortality rates in Wisconsin each year between 2003 and 2008 were higher among females than males.

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Work-related Asthma

  • According to data from the Wisconsin BRFSS Asthma Callback Survey (2006-2009), the prevalence of work-related asthma (WRA) ranged from 8.4 percent (doctor diagnosed WRA) to 34.8 percent (asthma aggravated by previous job).
  • Combining doctor-diagnosed and self-identified WRA resulted in an estimate of 14.0 percent.
  • In a survey of Wisconsin workers who had been medically evaluated to wear a respirator, 17 percent of workers were diagnosed with asthma by a medical professional (22 percent of those with asthma were diagnosed with WRA).

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Meeting Healthy People 2010 Asthma Goals in Wisconsin

  • Wisconsin met the HP2010 target goal for asthma mortality rates in three of five age groups, including 5-14 years, 35-64 years and 65 years or older. While asthma mortality rates have decreased slightly from the baseline values in age groups 0-4 years and 15-34 years, they remain higher than the HP2010 target rates.
  • Wisconsin asthma hospitalization rates were lower than HP2010 targets for all age groups except 65 years or older.
  • Within all age strata, Wisconsin met HP2010 ED visit rate target goals.
  • Wisconsin did not meet the target (2 days) for reducing the number of school/work days missed by persons with asthma due to asthma.
  • With respect to the proportion of adults with asthma who received formal patient education, Wisconsin did not meet the target of 30 percent.
  • Only one of four components related to increasing the proportion of persons with asthma who receive appropriate asthma care according to NAEPP guidelines met the HP2010 target (more than 73 percent of persons with asthma received education about recognizing early signs and symptoms of asthma episodes and how to respond appropriately).

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For more detailed asthma statistics, please see the Burden of Asthma in Wisconsin 2010 (PDF, 8.1 MB)

Wisconsin Interactive Statistics on Health (WISH) gives you information about health indicators (measures of health) in Wisconsin.

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Last Revised:  January 11, 2012