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Data shows US black children are six times more likely to die of asthma, reflecting medical intervention, access to care and needed future efforts. 32 OctOber 2017 Inhalation Back Page e study, "Where Do Children with Asthma Die? A National Per- spective from 2003 to 2014," de- signed to determine which demo- graphics of children are dying due to asthma and where in the United States, has found that black chil- dren are six times more likely to die of asthma than white or His- panic children. Led by Anna Chen Arroyo, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, the find- ings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) in March 2017. Higher mortality rates Arroyo and colleagues used the National Center for Health Sta- tistics' Mortality Multiple Cause- of-Death public use data provid- ed from 2003 to 2014 to examine records for 2,571 children aged less than 19 years whose underly- ing cause of death was reported to be asthma. ey also evaluated the children's age, sex, race and ethnicity. In studying locations of pediatric asthma death, sites were categorized in three sec- tions: out-of-hospital (home or dead on arrival), outpatient (emergency department or clin- ic) and inpatient. e findings showed the annual mortality rate for black children (9.29 per 1,000,000 persons) was six times higher compared to His- panic (1.54 per 1,000,000) and white children (1.28 per 1,000,000). An outpatient setting was listed more frequently as place of death (51%) than inpatient (30%) and out-of-hospital (14%) locations. Outpatient asthma deaths were more common among black children (59%) than white (24%) and Hispanic children (12%), while out-of-hospital asthma deaths were also dispro- portionately more common in black children (50%) compared to white (35%) and Hispanic children (10%). More deaths in all locations "It has been known for some time that black minority children are hospitalized more and die more from asthma compared to white children," Chen Aroyo said at a press conference. "As significant ef- forts have been spent on reducing pediatric asthma health disparities, we were interested in looking at where children die: out of the hos- pital, in the emergency room or clinics, or in the hospital. Unfortu- nately, we found that black chil- dren continue to die at a rate six to seven times higher than white or Hispanic children, which did not significantly decrease over the study period. When we looked at differences in the location of death across different racial and ethnic groups, we found that there was a higher proportion of black chil- dren dying in all three settings." The need for timely intervention "Deaths from asthma, especially among children, are sentinel events that can be avoided with timely in- tervention," continued Chen Ar- royo. Possible factors that contrib- ute to a higher number of deaths among black youth are "access to care, environmental factors that trigger asthma exacerbations, or inherently more severe disease in these children." "e location of death reflects the amount of medical interventions that were provided prior to the child's death, implying differential access to care and suggesting where we need to focus on future efforts and interventions." References Chen Arroyo AJ, et al. Abstract 283, Presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting, March 3-6, 2017. is article was compiled from: AAAAI 2017, Black children six times more likely to die of asthma, March, 4, 2017. Allergic Living, Far higher death rate among black children with asthma in US, March 4, 2017. Healio, Highlights from AAAAI 2017, Black children at significant- ly higher risk of asthma death re- gardless of setting, March 5, 2017. Medical Xpress (HealthDay), AAAAI: Asthma more likely to prove fatal in black children, March 7, 2017. Black children in US six times more likely to die of asthma