December 12, 2006 -- New Report Says 9 Percent of Children Have Asthma

A report issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that 6.5 million children under the age of 18 in the United States currently have asthma. That is nearly 9 percent of all children in that age range, more than double the percentage who were reported to have asthma in 1980. Among racial/ethnic groups, Puerto Rican and non-Hispanic black children have the highest percentages of asthma (19.2 percent and 12.7 percent respectively). Children with at least one asthma attack missed a total of 12.8 million school days due to asthma in school year 2002, the most recent year for which school data are available. Asthma-related visits to physician’s offices have increased sharply since the early 1990s, while emergency department visits have remained fairly stable at approximately 100 visits per 10,000 children. The CDC reports that asthma death rates for children declined from 3.2 deaths per million children under age 18 in 1999 to 2.5 deaths per million in 2004. The report, "The State of Childhood Asthma," is available online at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs.