Asthma Foundation: link between poverty & respiratory health

Asthma Foundation statistics support Child Poverty Monitor link between poverty and poor respiratory health

The latest figures from the Respiratory Health Impact Report commissioned by the Asthma Foundation support the Child Poverty Monitor figures noting poverty as a major driver for poor respiratory health in New Zealand.

In a press release by the Child Poverty Monitor, Dr Jean Simpson, the NZCYES’s Director notes “The negative health outcomes associated with child poverty are also starkly apparent in our high rates of hospital admissions for infectious and respiratory diseases. These diseases include bronchiolitis, acute upper respiratory infections, pneumonia and rheumatic fever, which can have lifelong implications for those who have suffered them in childhood. Reducing the number of young children living in poverty is critical to improving the health of the whole population”.

The Respiratory Health Impact Report 2013 highlighted that inequalities in health by socio-economic deprivation were marked - often with the effect of deprivation close to exponential. For example those in the most deprived quintile were:
• 2.9 times as likely to be hospitalised with a respiratory condition;
• 3.2 times as likely to be hospitalised for asthma;
• 5.4 times as likely to be hospitalised for childhood bronchiolitis - the combined effect of ethnicity and deprivation meant Maori and Pacific children in the least deprived were more than 8 times as likely to be hospitalised.

Translating these numbers into actual people would result in around 350 children from wealthy homes being admitted to hospital for bronchiolitis compared to nearly 3000 admissions from the poorest households.

Angela Francis, chief executive of the Asthma Foundation says “these startling statistics are a call to action to the government. This again demonstrates the link between poverty, the social determinants of health and poor respiratory outcomes. Until these issues including housing, low incomes and access to healthcare are addressed it will always be a struggle for the poorest people to achieve and maintain good respiratory health status

In New Zealand
• Over 500,000 New Zealanders have asthma
• One in seven children (107,000) and one in nine adults (389,000) have asthma
• In 2013 asthma was responsible for 7,400 hospitalisations
• People still die from asthma, with 69 deaths in 2011
• In the five years between 2006 and 2011:
-- Asthma deaths were six times higher for Pacific Peoples and five times higher for Maori compared to NZ European
-- People in the most deprived areas were three times more likely to die of asthma than people in the least deprived areas
-- Children living in the most deprived areas were more likely to have asthma (15%) than children living in the least deprived areas (10%)
• Maori have a higher prevalence of asthma compared to non-Maori children, tend to have more severe symptoms, require hospitalisation for asthma almost three times as often, and require more time off school because of asthma
• $800,000,000 is the conservative estimate of the annual economic burden of asthma
• Asthma affects approximately 235 million people worldwide and the prevalence is rising
• Asthma causes an estimated 250,000 deaths worldwide annually

About the Asthma Foundation
The Asthma Foundation is New Zealand’s sector authority on asthma and other respiratory illnesses. We advocate to government and raise awareness of respiratory illnesses, fund research for better treatments and educate on best practice. We provide resources on our website and support our affiliated asthma societies and trusts in providing education, support and advice. For more information, visit the Asthma Foundation’s website www.asthmafoundation.org.nz.

ENDS

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