Slight decline in documented asthma frequency during the corona pandemic
08.05.2023 17:52
According to the current results of the Health Atlas of the AOK Scientific Institute (WIdO), around 3.3 million people in Germany live with asthma that is treated with medication. This corresponds to a share of 3.98 percent of the population. On the occasion of World Asthma Day on May 2nd, the new WIdO website draws attention to a trend reversal in asthma frequency: Before the corona pandemic, in 2019, there were 3.5 million asthma patients in Germany .
In 2021, this number fell by around 200,000 patients – a decrease of 5.68 percent. Whether this declining effect may be due to the significant decline in respiratory infections during the pandemic years needs to be closely monitored in the future. Asthma prevalences are particularly high in Thuringia (4.55 percent) and North Rhine-Westphalia (4.50 percent), and particularly low in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (3.25 percent) and Baden-Württemberg (3.52 percent).
In addition to asthma will be on the new website www.gesundheitsatlas-deutschland.de The frequencies of a total of 23 diseases are systematically presented, including cardiovascular diseases, infections, cancer, diseases of the psyche, nerves, metabolism, respiratory tract and the musculoskeletal system. This allows the health situation of all residents of Germany to be explored. The results are presented both at the level of the federal states and on a small scale down to the level of the 400 districts. Time series over the last five years as well as the impact by age and gender can be analyzed.
There has been an increase in medication-treated asthma since 2017, reaching a peak of 4.27 percent in 2020, followed by a reversal in 2021 (see figure). In 2021 the proportion of the population was 3.98 percent; This corresponds to 3.3 million people in Germany who were treated with medication for asthma. In 2020, 3.6 million people were still affected, 237,000 more patients than in 2021.