San Antonio Express News, June 26, 2007
SAN ANTONIO - Asthma, a chronic disease that inflames the lungs and narrows breathing pathways, is vastly underdiagnosed throughout Texas, participants at a local conference on health disparities said Tuesday. Asthma in people with low incomes and little to no health insurance is frequently missed or overlooked because they often lack access to consistent medical care or do not have primary care physicians as their providers, said Sharon Petronella, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Once diagnosed, the poor and uninsured find it hard to get specialized services, medications and education to manage their disease, said Dr. Pamela Wood, a pediatrics professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Petronella and Wood joined about 50 others from around the state for a meeting on health care disparities that focused mainly on asthma. The conference at the health science center, which attracted physicians, public health experts, school officials and policymakers, was hosted by state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, who is a pharmacist. Data on asthma prevalence in Texas indicate African American adults have the highest rate of the disease, at 9.2 percent, and Hispanics have the lowest, at 4.3 percent. The rate for Anglo adults is 7.7 percent. But Petronella suggested that the data is limited because it came from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention phone survey reflecting only the cases that have been diagnosed by a health care professional. "When you hear that asthma is lowest in Hispanics, I'd argue that it's probably not any lower, it's just less likely to be diagnosed," she said. Read more ...