Asthma in Michigan

Important Terms Prevalence of Asthma Asthma Severity Asthma Management Work-Related Asthma Asthma Hospitalization

Asthma Death Cost of Asthma Healthy People 2010 Data Sources and Methods Michigan Fact Sheets and Reports Asthma Statistics by County

Important Terms

• Prevalence: Prevalence is the fraction of people in a population who have a disease at a point in time.
  
  
• Rate: A calculation describing the speed at which new disease or health events occur. For example, the rate of asthma death in Michigan is 16.4 per million people per year.
  
  
• Work-Related Asthma: Work-related asthma is asthma caused by exposures at work. It can also be existing asthma made worse by exposures at work.
  
  
• Asthma Hospitalization: An asthma hospitalization is one where asthma is the primary reason for the hospital stay. (International Classification of Disease (ICD) Version 9 Clinical Modification code 493.XX)
  
  
• Asthma Death: An asthma death is one where asthma is the primary reason for the death. (International Classification of Disease (ICD) Version 9 Clinical Modification code 493.XX or Version 10 codes J45 and J46)
  
  
• Moderate or Severe Persistent Asthma Category: This type is made up of people who have daily or continuous asthma symptoms during a month. People who wake up from sleep 5 or more nights during a month because of asthma symptoms are also in this group. (This is based on responses available from the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey. It is only used for monitoring trends in asthma data. Data on lung function are not available on this survey.)
  
  
• Persistent asthma (HEDIS^®): Persistent asthma is defined according to the Health Plan and Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS^®) definition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). The criteria for this definition are:
  
  
  • at least four occasions where asthma medicine is given out OR
    
    
  • at least one visit to an emergency room where the primary reason was asthma OR
    
    
  • at least one visit to the hospital where the primary reason was asthma OR
    
    
  • at least four visits to a doctor where the primary reason was asthma and at least two occasions where asthma medicine is given out.