There are significant inequalities in asthma in Wales, a study revealed.
Researchers at Swansea University Medical School and the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research found wide gaps in asthma outcomes between the poorest and richest areas.
In a research abstract published in The Lancet, Al Sallakh et al. linked anonymised asthma data from primary and secondary care in Wales. They found that asthma patients living in the most deprived areas were slightly more likely to see their general practitioner for asthma than those in the least deprived areas. But despite that, patients from the most deprived areas were more than twice as likely to be admitted to hospital for asthma than those living in the least deprived areas.
Hospital admissions are usually required when asthma patients have severe or life threatening attacks, which often happen when asthma is poorly treated. While poor asthma control may result from suboptimal prescribing of medication, other factors such as poor self-management, inadequate health literacy and wider socioeconomic factors could be contributing to the observed differences.
Asthma affects more than 310,000 patients across all socioeconomic groups in Wales, and the observed wide disparities in outcomes between these groups represents a significant challenge for health policy.
Recognising the scale of these inequalities, Mohammad Al Sallakh, the lead author, said
"Our study findings warrant further investigation into the causes of these wide gaps in asthma outcomes between the deprivation extremes. This could have important implications for understanding how to reduce the burden for individuals and health service costs."
Links
Link to publication in The Lancet
Link to Mohammad Al Sallakh's Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research profile