Nevada among states with high asthma rates

Art Nadler

Friday, Dec. 11, 1998 | 11:37 a.m.

Nevada is among the states with the highest rate of asthma in the country, a recently released Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows. Asthma affected 125,700 people in Nevada in 1998, or 7.2 percent of the population.

The lowest ranking noted in the report was for Florida, Oklahoma and West Virginia, which have rates of 5.8 percent. Colorado and California each came in at 0.1 percent below Nevada.

The CDC's "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report," ending Dec. 4, stated that asthma is the ninth leading cause of people being hospitalized. Nationally, an estimated 17.3 million people were affected by the respiratory disorder in 1998.

Self-reported asthma cases in the United States, the CDC said, increased by 75 percent from 1980 to 1994. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, 14 Americans die each day from asthma -- triple the rate 20 years ago.

Asthma occurs when small airways in the lungs called bronchioles swell and fill with mucus. During an attack, these airways narrow and breathing becomes very difficult.

Dr. Joram Seggev, a Las Vegas board-certified allergist, said he surveyed the billing records at University Medical Center from 1992 to 1994 and found that $5 million had been billed for treating the disease.

"It was very clear that the number of admissions at UMC was higher for children," Seggev said.

Seggev also conducted asthma screenings at the West Charleston Library in May. Of 71 people tested, 85 percent tested positive.

Most disturbing, Seggev found, was that most of the people had been misdiagnosed by primary care doctors. They had never been referred to an allergy specialist and weren't receiving appropriate medications.

"If children are treated aggressively with medication early, they will be less likely to have lung problems," Seggev said.

Seggev's early treatment advice has been corroborated by another study, "Questioning the Emphasis on Environmental Contaminants as a Significant Threat to Children's Health," released last month. It was conducted at the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

The co-authors, Stephen Huebner and Dr. Kenneth Chilton, found that the incidences of asthma could be affected by how well respiratory and other infections in children are treated when first diagnosed. Treating these childhood diseases effectively, they found, could protect children against developing asthma.

Huebner and Chilton concluded that asthma could also be caused by indoor pollution, which would include tobacco smoke, molds, exposure to mites and cockroach dust.

Seggev suggests that people who are sensitive to allergies should not have pets in the house. He also said people should be cognizant of what plants they have both inside and outside their homes.

The World Health Organization and the U.S. Heart, Lung and Blood Institute are drawing attention to asthma by designating today as World Asthma Day. Asthma experts around the world are challenging people to reduce childhood asthma deaths by 50 percent.

The organizations plan to do this by developing better ways to inform people on the best methods to diagnose asthma, increasing availability of the latest treatments and calling for more national research studies.