Children With Asthma See the Doctor More Often — Especially Poor and Hispanic Children

Most American children see a health care provider in a year, with or without asthma. But children with asthma are more likely to go three or more times — 32.0 percent of them, against 24.0 percent of children without asthma — and the gap is widest among children in poor and near-poor families.

Preventive health care visits among U.S. children with and without asthma. Credit: CDC.

Why count visits

Tracking how children with asthma use health care helps estimate the burden of the disease and judge the effect of asthma prevention programs and of changes in the quality of care.

Who goes, and how often

• Age. Frequent visits decline with age for all children. Under 5, there is no difference between children with and without asthma (49.8 and 46.1 percent had three or more visits). From 5 to 17, children with asthma are the ones visiting more often: 30.2 against 16.3 percent at ages 5–11, and 27.1 against 14.3 percent at 12–17.
• Sex. Boys and girls with asthma had three or more visits at similar rates (32.3 and 31.6 percent), above boys and girls without it (23.7 and 24.2 percent). Children without asthma were more likely to have had no visit at all.
• Race and ethnicity. One or two visits was the most common pattern in every group. Three or more visits were most common among Hispanic children (40.6 percent with asthma, 27.2 percent without) and non-Hispanic Black children (36.1 and 25.8 percent), and least common among non-Hispanic white children (27.2 and 22.0 percent).

Income

Frequent visits fell as family income rose, for children with and without asthma alike, while one or two visits became more common.

About the data

The figures come from the National Survey of Children's Health, 2011–2012, which asked how many times in the past 12 months (or since birth) the child had seen a doctor, nurse or other provider for preventive care such as a physical exam or well-child checkup. CDC's National Asthma Control Program, created in 1999, runs national asthma surveillance and funds states to improve theirs.

Sources

Based on "AsthmaStats: Number of Visits to a Health Care Provider(s) among Children" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Asthma Control Program, a work of the United States government in the public domain.