Asthma is a very common condition in the UK affecting around almost 1 in 10 of the population. Our previous work has found that there are nearly 100,000 hospitalisations and over 1,000 deaths from asthma every year. Furthermore, we found that asthma costs the NHS over £1billion/year. These estimates, however, are now several years out of date. We wish to update these estimates both for the UK and its member countries and assess whether there have been any improvements in asthma prevalence. The severity of some of the asthma symptoms can be potentially managed by addressing smoking, body weight, seasonal flu vaccination, monitoring of inhaler technique, having asthma self-management plan, annual asthma review, which are some of the asthma modifiable factors recorded in primary care. We will describe the prevalence of these asthma modifiable factors in the asthma population for the four nations of UK. We will use these updated estimates and time trend analyses to help guide future health policy and research efforts.
For the UK and its member nations, we seek to describe the incidence and prevalence of asthma for the UK and its member nations. Our secondary objectives are to describe healthcare utilisation due to asthma and modifiable risk factors for asthma. Healthcare utilisation will include primary care consultations, asthma medications (maintenance and reliever medications), secondary care outpatient and accident and emergency clinics and hospitalisations. Attendance to secondary care clinics and hospitalisations will be described only for patients with asthma from England whose GP practices consented to data linkage. Where possible we will quantify the prevalence of modifiable risk factors for asthma i.e. body weight, determinable smoking status, seasonal flu vaccinations, monitoring of inhaler technique, having an asthma self-management plan, annual asthma review for the four nations of UK. We will stratify the data, where possible, by gender, age-groups, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, country and year. Considering data confidentiality, if the cell counts permit, we would provide estimates for regions in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, standardising by age and sex to the relevant nations regional population. We will look at the trend of the outcomes over twenty years, 2000 to 2020. We will use these updated estimates to guide our deliberations with policymakers, health system leaders and our research efforts, which are focused on reducing the current unacceptably high number of asthma hospitalisations and deaths in the UK.
i) Incidence of asthma for the UK and its member nations,
ii) prevalence of asthma for the UK and its member nations,
iii) primary care consultations for asthma for the UK and its member nations,
iv) asthma medications (maintenance and reliever medications) for the UK and its member nations,
v) attendance to outpatient clinics for patients with asthma from England whose GP practices consented to data linkage,
vi) attendance to accident and emergency clinics for patients with asthma from England whose GP practices consented to data linkage,
vii) hospitalisations for patients with asthma from England whose GP practices consented to data linkage,
viii) body weight in patients with asthma for the UK and its member nations,
ix) determinable smoking status in patients with asthma for the UK and its member nations,
x) seasonal flu vaccinations in patients with asthma for the UK and its member nations,
xi) asthma self-management plan in patients with asthma for the UK and its member nations,
xii) monitoring of inhaler technique in patients with asthma for the UK and its member nations,
xiii) annual asthma review in patients with asthma for the UK and its member nations,
xiv) modifiable factors viii-xiii to an exacerbation event – oral corticosteroid prescription, A&E attendance, hospitalisation and death due to asthma.
Mome Mukherjee - Chief Investigator - University of Edinburgh
Aziz Sheikh - Corresponding Applicant - University of Edinburgh
Jennifer Quint - Collaborator - Imperial College London
Simon de Lusignan - Collaborator - University of Oxford
HES Accident and Emergency;HES Admitted Patient Care;HES Outpatient;ONS Death Registration Data;Patient Level Index of Multiple Deprivation;Practice Level Index of Multiple Deprivation