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. 2023 Aug;60(8):1601-1607.
doi: 10.1080/02770903.2023.2165445. Epub 2023 Feb 2.

Changes in asthma emergency department visits in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dongni Ye  1   2 , Abigail Gates  3 , Lakshmi Radhakrishnan  3 , Maria C Mirabelli  1 , W Dana Flanders  1   4 , Kanta Sircar  1   5
Affiliations

Changes in asthma emergency department visits in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dongni Ye et al. J Asthma. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: A better understanding of the impacts of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on emergency department (ED) visits for asthma is needed to improve asthma control.

Methods: Using data from the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP), we assessed changes in average weekly asthma ED visits in the United States in 3 surveillance periods: 1) March 15, 2020-January 2, 2021; 2) January 3, 2021-January 1, 2022; and 3) January 2-March 5, 2022, relative to pre-pandemic comparison periods between December 30, 2018 and December 28, 2019. For each surveillance period, we assessed changes in asthma ED visits by age group and sex.

Results: For the surveillance period beginning March 15, 2020, average weekly asthma ED visits declined 31% relative to what was observed during the comparison period - that is, from 45,276 visits/week in 2019 to 31,374 visits/week in 2020. Declines of over 19% and 26% were observed for 2021 and 2022, respectively, relative to the comparison periods. In all surveillance periods, the largest declines occurred among children, especially those ages 0-4 (74%) and 5-11 (66%) years.

Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted asthma ED visits in the United States. The impact was greater among children than adults, as ED visits among children were notably lower during all three pandemic surveillance periods than during the corresponding pre-pandemic periods. Additional information about the roles of behaviors of patients with asthma and changes in asthma care might improve our understanding of the reasons underlying these observed changes.

Keywords: Adults; children; epidemiology; pandemic; population-based; surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Interest Statement: The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Box and whisker plot of average weekly asthma emergency department (ED) visits per 1000 all-cause ED visits for the 2020 (■), 2021 (■), and 2022 (□) pandemic surveillance periods and the corresponding 2019 comparison surveillance periods
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Box and whisker plot of average weekly asthma emergency department (ED) visits per 1000 all-cause ED visits for the 2020 (■), 2021 (■), and 2022 (□) pandemic surveillance periods and the corresponding 2019 comparison surveillance periods, across categories of age
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Box and whisker plot of weekly asthma emergency department (ED) visits per 1000 all-cause ED visits for the 2020 (■), 2021 (■), and 2022 (□) pandemic surveillance periods and the corresponding 2019 comparison surveillance periods, across categories of sex
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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