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. 2025 Jan 31;25(1):54.
doi: 10.1186/s12890-025-03518-y.

Global, regional, and national epidemiology of allergic diseases in children from 1990 to 2021: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Jun Zheng #  1 , Yi-Jing Jin #  2 , Cheng-Hai Wang #  3 , Chu Feng  2 , Xin-Yuan Lai  4   5 , Shu-Qing Hua  6 , Jia-Hui Tai  7
Affiliations

Global, regional, and national epidemiology of allergic diseases in children from 1990 to 2021: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Jun Zheng et al. BMC Pulm Med. .

Abstract

Background: Asthma and atopic dermatitis (AD) represent significant global health challenges in children. This study aimed to investigate trends in incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for childhood asthma and AD from 1990 to 2021.

Methods: The study utilized information from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2021. The sample size for this study consisted of children with asthma or AD between the ages of 0 and 14. From 1990-2021, we calculated asthma and AD's age-standardized incidence, prevalence, and DALYs by area, age, sex, and socio-demographic index.

Results: In 2021, global childhood asthma prevalence reached 95.7 million cases (age-standardized rate: 4,758 per 100,000), with the Low SDI region recording 25.4 million cases. For AD, global prevalence was 72.4 million cases (age-standardized rate: 3,600 per 100,000), predominantly in Middle SDI regions (19.7 million cases). Between 1990 and 2021, age-standardized incidence rates decreased for both conditions. Geographic variations were notable: High-income North America showed the highest asthma incidence, while Western Europe led in AD prevalence. The global burden of asthma-related DALYs declined from 6.9 million in 1990 to 4.6 million in 2021, with significant regional disparities.

Conclusions: Despite decreasing age-standardized rates, childhood asthma and AD continue to pose substantial health burdens globally, with marked variations across regions and socioeconomic strata. These findings emphasize the need for targeted, region-specific interventions.

Keywords: Allergic disorders; Disability-adjusted life years; Global Burden of disease; Incidence; Prevalence.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study is based on data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. The GBD study uses deidentified data, and a waiver of informed consent was approved by the University of Washington Institutional Review Board. As our research utilized this publicly available, deidentified dataset, additional ethics approval for our specific analysis was not required. This approach is in line with the ethical guidelines for secondary data analysis. Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Epidemiologic trends of incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life-years rates in 5 sociodemographic index regions of childhood asthma from 1990 to 2021
Fig.2
Fig.2
The global disease burden of allergic diseases in children for both sexes in 204 countries and territories
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Change prevalence cases of asthma in children in 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Association between age-standardized asthma in children prevalence rate and sociodemographic index
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Proportion of childhood asthma deaths and disability-adjusted life-years attributable to risk factors
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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