Among American children, it is unclear if the disparity in asthma diagnosis among non-Hispanic white and Latino patients exists as a result of diagnostic variation in clinical scenarios that are suggestive of asthma. This study’s goal was to determine the distribution of demographic factors that correlate with asthma diagnosis within the Hispanic American community.
This study focuses on an analysis of ICD-10 asthma diagnoses among patients that presented with possible asthmatic symptoms. The study used data from 13 years of electronic health records from a multi-state network of community health centers. The study relied on data from a total of 524,456 patients. Of these, 85,516 presented with possible asthma indicators.
The researchers found that Spanish-preferring Latino children exhibited lower adjusted odds of asthma diagnosis than English-preferring Latino children and non-Hispanic white children. They concluded that physicians should be cognizant of this diagnostic disparity and make an effort to follow up with these patients to confirm their asthma diagnosis or lack thereof [1].
Source:
[1] Heintzman, J., Ezekiel-Herrera, D., Bailey, S. R., Garg, A., Lucas, J., Suglia, S., Cowburn, S., Puro, J., & Marino, M. (2020). Latino-white disparities in ICD-coded asthma diagnosis among US children. Journal of Asthma, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/02770903.2020.1861628