Asthma Program

Asthma Research and Data

Minnesota Asthma Data

The Minnesota Department of Health Asthma Program has established an asthma surveillance system to better understand and describe the burden of asthma in Minnesota. Tracking different aspects of asthma (such as the number of Minnesotans with the disease, rates of asthma-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits, quality of life, and mortality) provides important guides to planning education and intervention programs and to developing policies that are necessary for preventing and controlling asthma in the future.

For more information about the study, please contact Wendy Brunner, asthma program epidemiologist, at 651-201-5895 or wendy.brunner@state.mn.us.

Available Information:

Asthma in Minnesota: 2012 Epidemiology Report
(PDF: 2.29MB/90 pages) published June 2012; revised August 2012

- Errata for 2012 Epidemiology Report (PDF: 130KB/8 pages)

NEW! Asthma in Minnesota: Slide Presentation, January 2013
(Powerpoint: 2.20MB/42 slides)
Includes recent data on asthma in Minnesota and has been developed as a resource for our partners in the asthma community. Speaker's notes are included.

Asthma in Minnesota, 2011 Fact Sheet
(PDF: 48/KB/2 pages)
NEW! Asthma Among Minnesota Health Care Program Enrollees, 2013 (PDF: 651KB/18 pages)
Minnesota Public Health Data Access
Find data about public health and risk factors that impact public health at Minnesota Public Health Data Access with our web-based data access portal. The portal includes data on asthma hospitalizations and air quality in Minnesota.
MN Environmental Public Health Tracking Program Hospitalization Data Measures Report
(PDF: 2.2MB/ 68 pages)
Hospitalization Data Measures (Asthma, Heart Attack, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), 2000-2007 published December 2009
Tribal Asthma Data Profile: Minnesota
(PDF: 447KB/2 pages)
Asthma Among American Indians in Minnesota
(PDF: 583 KB/5 pages) (revised 01/28/13)
Healthy People 2010 Asthma Objectives: December 2009 Update
(PDF: 139KB/5 pages) revised 1/14/2010
National Asthma Data
National Research and Data Resource Links

Review of Asthma Deaths Among Older Adults in Minnesota Conducted by the MDH Asthma Program

We conducted a review of asthma deaths among older adults in Minnesota and the results have been published in the July issue of CDC’s online journal, Preventing Chronic Disease. The article is available at the following link: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2009/jul/08_0154.htm.

In our study, we found that the majority of deaths among Minnesotans over age 55 that had been coded as asthma were in reality due to other causes. We found that errors in completing death certificates, as well as difficulties in distinguishing asthma from other chronic respiratory conditions, like COPD, result in an overestimation of the number of asthma deaths in this age group.

Prior to this study, we were planning to target activities at preventing asthma deaths among seniors since the asthma mortality rate in that age group was higher than the national average. Now we know that most of the deaths are probably not due to asthma, and that our efforts would be better focused on asthma morbidity rather than mortality in our senior population.

For more information about the study, please contact Wendy Brunner, asthma program epidemiologist, at 651-201-5895 or wendy.brunner@state.mn.us

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Please contact:
health.asthma@state.mn.us