Who's Most Affected? Asthma in the US

This week I will be giving a little bit of information on who is more at risk for asthma, based on recent trends. While searching for data from the past 5 years, I found that the overwhelming amount of the most recent nation-wide research is from 2007-2011 or 2012. I assume that more recent data is still being processed and put into documents by organizations such as the WHO and CDC. Once I find more recent data I will update this post. For now, here is what I've found:

• Approximately 1 in 12 people in the United States have asthma, and this trend has been and will likely continue to rise over time.

• More children than adults (9.5% vs 7.7%) and more females than males (9.2 vs. 7.0%) have asthma.
• People who identified as being of multiple races had the highest prevalence of asthma (14.1%), followed by African Americans (11.2%), Alaska Natives (9.4%), Whites (7.7%), Hispanic/Latino (6.5%), and Asians (5.2%). [I dislike when statistics clump many different ethnicities in such broad categories, but nonetheless it is often what happens in statistical analysis. If you choose to click on the link from where I found this information, the data table (figure 2) includes just a few more categories that have been broken down.]
• People of lower income are more affected , especially in households with an annual income below $15,000. Overall , the less income a family makes below the poverty line , the more cases of asthma we see. 
• According to the World Health Organization, asthma causes an estimated 25.6 million missed school/work days each year. 
• Asthma deaths, while rare, still do occur. According to 2010 data , asthma deaths have been decreasing, but they are most common among the elderly (over age 65), African Americans, and females. It is estimated that 9 people per day in the US die from asthma. 

Below I have added a nice picture from the CDC that includes their most updated nation-wide information on some of what I have mentioned and more:

Here is a map from the national Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System of people who reported having asthma in 2010. This map should give an idea of how asthma is distributed in the US, but use it with caution. Because this data is self-reported, there is a possibility of bias, as the population surveyed may not be an accurate representation of the total US prevalence. (For instance, there could be many more people unaccounted for in this survey, either because not everyone with asthma was questioned or did not have telephones to answer the survey, or there were people who did not wish to answer the survey, etc. The list goes on). What I personally take from viewing this map is simply the fact that asthma is distributed throughout the US.

Sources:

         Akinbami LJ, Moorman JE, Bailey C, et al. Trends in asthma prevalence, health care use, and mortality in the United States, 2001–2010. NCHS data brief, no 94. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2012.http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db94.htm

       Asthma Facts: CDC's National Asthma Control Program Grantees. (2013, July 1). Retrieved January 16, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/pdfs/asthma_facts_program_grantees.pdf

         Asthma: Scope of the Problem in the USA. (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://www.who.int/gard/news_events/21_casale_aaaai.pdf?ua=1

2010 Adult Asthma Data: Prevalence Tables and Maps. (2012, August 27). Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/brfss/2010/current/mapC1.htm