Puerto Rican and African-American children show different patterns of asthma care
From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
Asthma has been on the rise for the past two decades, and minority populations have an especially high prevalence.
A study in the August issue of the journal Chest suggests that Puerto Rican children with asthma make more clinic visits than African-American children with similar disease severity, but that the latter spend more time in the hospital for asthma.
The finding may reflect cultural differences in perceptions of medical care and how it is used, says lead investigator Robyn Cohen, MD, a pulmonary attending physician at Children's Hospital Boston.
"The Puerto Rican children had greater asthma severity, so it was interesting that the African American children ended up spending more days in the hospital," she says.
"Is that because Puerto Rican children get more care early in their illness?
Are we not reaching out enough to make all families feel comfortable coming to the clinic?
Overall, only 18 percent of the children classified as having persistent asthma filled prescriptions for preventive medications, such as inhaled steroids, but Puerto Rican families were more likely than African American families to fill them.
"We want patients to preemptively treat symptoms as they start up, so they don't have severe exacerbations that require emergency visits and hospitalizations," says Woods.
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