Introduction: Asthma is a chronic condition with a high prevalence and cost of care among children and adolescents. While previous research described the association of sociodemographic factors with childhood asthma prevalence, there is limited knowledge of these factors' association with medical expenditures. In this study, we examined disparities in treated asthma prevalence and medical expenditures among US children and adolescents.
Methods: Using nationally representative data from the 2016-2021 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey, we conducted a cross-sectional study of 2,365 children and adolescents (aged 0-17 y) with treated asthma compared with 40,497 children and adolescents without treated asthma. Treated asthma was defined as whether the child or adolescent had a medical event (emergency department visit, hospital inpatient stay, hospital outpatient visit, office-based medical visit, home health, and/or prescribed medicines) due to asthma. We controlled for sociodemographic factors of race and ethnicity, age, sex, health insurance coverage, family poverty status, and census region. We used 2-part models and generalized linear models to estimate annual per-person incremental medical expenditures associated with asthma.
Results: Children and adolescents with treated asthma were more likely than those without treated asthma to be non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic, male, and publicly insured. Children and adolescents with treated asthma had $3,362.56 in additional annual medical expenditures, of which $174.06 was out-of-pocket, compared with children and adolescents without treated asthma. The additional expenditures included $955.96 for prescribed medicines, $151.52 for emergency department visits, and $858.17 for office-based medical visits. Non-Hispanic Black children with treated asthma had significantly lower total ($2,721.28) and office-based visit expenditures ($803.19) than non-Hispanic White children with treated asthma.
Conclusion: Disparities among children and adolescents in the US persist in treated asthma prevalence and associated medical expenditures by sociodemographic factors.