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Socioeconomic
Impact of Asthma
During
the working group[1] discussion of
the socioeconomic panel of the WHO-NIHLBI “Global Strategy for
Asthma Management Project”, it became evident that very few
studies on social, economic and cultural aspects of asthma have
been done in the industrialized and developed economies. In the
developing world such studies were not available at all. Without
any such studies the panel was handicapped in making
recommendations about socioeconomic impact of asthma all over the
world. At the same time, the time table of the full project could
not be held up because of this. Hence it was decided to go for a
few quick exploratory studies. This study[2] was a result of the
decision. The social impact of asthma advances far beyond the bar
numbers of affected individuals. It creates a burden not only for
the individual but also for society,
with reduced productivity, quality of life, and economic
costs. Social institutions, family practices and behavioral
responses can all contribute towards coping with the morbidity.
These social and cultural opportunities should not miss the
attention of medical and public health professionals. The study[3] sought to develop
tools to assess socioeconomic aspects of asthma and to describe
them. It revealed that the illness ‘asthma’ is an easily
identified problem both in rural and urban areas. In the rural
area, the poor preferred to avail services from the government
health facility. Majority (75%) of those suffering from the
disease had to either avoid (40%) or restrict (35%) work on
account of asthma. The children among them lost on an average 2.66
days of school per month and the adults lost about 1.65 days work
per month. In addition to the direct burden of asthma due to loss
of school or work for the affected person, families with an
asthmatic experience loss of work by other members of the family
to attend on the affected person and quite significant expenditure
for treatment of the disease. For example the top two causes cited
by asthmatics who perceived their condition as a burden were; (a)
overall cost of the treatment takes away a big chunk of the family
income, (b) the need for assistance by at least one family member
during attacks. Major part of the financial burden was on account
of medicine purchase. Thus lowering of prices of asthma medication
is likely to increase utilization of the drugs and reduction of
morbidity. The report is also brought out as a working paper by
IHS[4].
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