[Comment] Eliminating asthma deaths: have we stalled?

There has been a marked and progressive reduction in asthma mortality rates since the epidemic of deaths in many countries around the world that preceded major changes in the clinical and public health approaches to asthma in the late 1980s. The effort to turn around rising asthma mortality rates was broad —occurring globally, nationally, and at a local level, through health system change to individual advocacy and clinical leadership.1 Previous approaches to acute and long-term care of asthma, which did not recognise the risks associated with short-acting β2 agonists, were overhauled when it becam e evident that their overuse was a key reason for the epidemic of asthma deaths at that time, especially in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the UK.
Source: LANCET - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Comment Source Type: research