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February 28, 2007
Los Angeles - Low-income Californians, as well as those from racial and ethnic minority groups, are hardest hit by breathing problems associated with asthma, according to two new policy briefs from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The briefs show that low-income and minority Californians with asthma are often more likely to visit to the emergency room for asthma care, miss school or work because of asthma and have poorer health status. Both groups are also more likely to lack access to health care and to be exposed to potential indoor asthma triggers, such as secondhand smoke or cockroaches in the home.
"Inadequate health insurance coverage and inadequate access to consistent care are probably the biggest factors responsible for the disproportionate asthma burden experienced by low-income Californians, but exposure to environmental triggers is also a factor" said Susan H. Babey, PhD, research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and lead author of the brief on low-income Californians.
"Racial and ethnic minorities are more adversely affected by problems associated with asthma than Whites, and the data show that limited access to health care and triggers in the home may have something to do with that," said Ying-Ying Meng, senior research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and lead author of the brief on how asthma affects minority Californians.
The two policy briefs use data from the 2003 California Health Interview Survey.
Other findings in the briefs include:
- Among adult Californians with asthma, those living below the poverty line were more likely than those with higher incomes to have daily or weekly symptoms (36 percent to 26 percent), visit the emergency room (26 percent to 12 percent) and report fair or poor health status (58 percent to 19 percent)
- Nineteen percent of white children with asthma and 13 percent of white adults with asthma visited the emergency room for asthma, compared to 33 percent and 19 percent, respectively, of African Americans and 26 percent and 26 percent, respectively, of Latinos.
- Californians with asthma living below the poverty line were more likely than higher income groups to be uninsured for at least part of the year (18 percent compared to 8 percent). Among those with asthma, Latinos were more likely to be uninsured all or part of the year (19 percent), compared to whites (11 percent).
- Low-income Californians with asthma are more likely to be exposed to asthma triggers such as second hand smoke (16 percent) and cockroaches (28 percent) in the home than their more affluent counterparts (7 percent and 8 percent, respectively). Twenty-two percent of African Americans with asthma were exposed to smoking in the home, compared to 10 percent of Whites.
"This report reinforces the urgency for comprehensive health reform that provides greater coverage and improved access to quality, affordable health care for Californians," said Robert K. Ross, M.D., president and CEO of The California Endowment, which provided funding for the policy briefs. "We need to find ways to provide individuals suffering from asthma - particularly those with the fewest resources to fight it - greater access to preventive treatment that will reduce their reliance on costly, emergency room care."
The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research was established in 1994 and is one of the nation's leading health policy research centers. It is also the premier source of key health policy information for California. The Center is based in the UCLA School of Public Health and is affiliated with the UCLA School of Public Affairs.
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