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Events – Allergy & Asthma Day Capitol Hill (AADCH), Thursday, May 9, 2013
Team AANMA at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC on Sunday, October 27, 2013
Allergy, Asthma and Anaphylaxis Statistics
Asthma
• Asthma prevalence increased from 7.3% in 2001 to 8.5% in 2011, when 25.9 million persons had asthma.1
a. 18.8 million adults aged 18 and over
b. 7.1 million children aged 0–17 years
• Females have higher asthma prevalence than males (9.7% compared with 7.2%) 2
• Persons of multiple races have the highest asthma prevalence (14.1%) 2
• 10.6 million physician office visits; 1.2 million outpatient visits; and 2.1 million emergency department visits for asthma 2
• Number of deaths per year: 3,388 2
a. 34% higher among females than males
b. 75% higher for black persons than white persons
c. 6.3 times higher for adults (over 18) than children
• Number of hospital discharges with asthma as first-listed diagnosis: 479,300 2
• Average length of hospital stay: 4.3 days 3
• 10.5 million school days and 14.2 million work days missed by people who experienced at least one asthma attack during the year 2
• In 2007, 29% of children who had a food allergy also had asthma 4
• Medical expenses associated with asthma increased from $48.6 billion in 2002 to $50.1 billion in 2007 5
Food Allergy
• Approximately 3 million US children under age 18 have food allergies 4
• Eight types of food account for 90% of all food allergies: cow’s milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soybeans, and wheat 6
• 16-18% of children with food allergies have had allergic reactions to accidental ingestion of food allergens while in school 7,8
• 25% of anaphylaxis reactions in schools occur among students without previous food allergy diagnosis 9
• Food allergies account for 35-50% of all cases of anaphylaxis 10
• Food allergies account for 150-200 fatalities per year 11
• Fatal food anaphylaxis is most often caused by peanut (50-62%) and tree nuts (15-30%) 12
Each year in the U.S., it is estimated that anaphylaxis to food results in:
- 30,000 emergency room visits8
- 2,000 hospitalizations8
- 150 deaths 8
Insect Sting Allergy
• 40 people die each year as a result of insect stings 13
• Life- threatening reactions to insect stings occur in 0.4% – 0.8% of children and 3% of adults 13
Latex Allergy
• 5%- 15% of healthcare workers have latex allergy 14
• About 3 million people in the U.S. (less than 1%) have latex allergy 14
Drug Allergy
• Anaphylactic reactions to penicillin cause 400 deaths 15
• Penicillin is the most common cause of drug induced anaphylaxis 16
1. National Health Interview Survey, 2011, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
2. National Surveillance of Asthma: United States, 2001-2010, Vital and Health Statistics, Series 3, Number 35, November 2012, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
3. National Center for Health Statistics, Ambulatory Health Care Data: Estimation procedures; available from http://www.ded.gov?nchs/ahcd/ahcd-estimation_p;procedures.htm [accessed 1/25/21]
4. Branum AM, Lukacs SL; Food allergy among U.S. children: Trends in prevalence and hospitalizations; NCHS data brief, No. 10; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008
5. Vital Signs, May 2011, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
6. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Food Allergies: What You Need To Know . Silver Spring, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
7. Sicherer SH, Furlong TJ, DeSimone J, Sampson HA. The US Peanut and Tree Nut Allergy Registry: characteristics of reactions in schools and day care. Journal of Pediatrics 2001 Apr;138(4):560–565
8. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Food Allergy: An Overview. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health; July 2007. NIH Publication No. 07-5518.9.
9. Nowak-Wegrzyn A, Conover-Walker MK, Wood RA. Food-allergic reactions in schools and preschools. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 2001 Jul;155(7):790–795.
10. The diagnosis and management of anaphylaxis: An updated practice parameter. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2005; 115:S483-523.
11. Sampson HA. Anaphylaxis and emergency treatment. Pediatrics 2003;111:1601-08
12. Keet CA, Wood RA. Food allergy and anaphylaxis. Immunol Allergy Clin N Am. 2007;27:193-212
13. Stinging insect hypersensitivity: A practice parameter update. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2004; 114:869-886.
14. Poley GE and Slater JE. Latex allergy. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2000; 105:1054-1062.
15. Neugut AL, Ghatak AT and Miller RL. Anaphylaxis in the United States: An investigation into its epidemiology. Archives of Internal Medicine 61 (1): 15-21. 2001.
16. The diagnosis and management of anaphylaxis: An updated practice parameter. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2005; 115:S483-523.
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