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One of the largest ever studies of its kind has used data linkage to highlight substantial ethnic variations in hospital admission and deaths from asthma. “Ethnic variations in asthma hospital admission, readmission and death: a retrospective, national cohort study of 4.62 million people in Scotland” was published in BMC Medicine this week.

This retrospective nine-year cohort study linked Scotland’s hospitalisation and death records on asthma to the 2001 census, to provide ethnicity details. Researchers were able to link data on nearly 92% of the Scottish population, yielding over 38 million patient-years of data, 1,800 asthma deaths, 113,000 first asthma admissions, and 107,000 readmissions.

It found that there were very substantial variations, with people of Pakistani descent having the worst and those of Chinese descent having the best outcomes. The authors suggest that cultural factors, including self-management and health seeking behaviours, and variations in the quality of primary care provision are the most likely explanations for these differences and these now need to be formally investigated.”