TY - JOUR T1 - Outcome of work-related asthma exacerbations in Quebec and Ontario JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 266 LP - 268 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00096114 VL - 45 IS - 1 AU - Catherine Lemière AU - Teresa To AU - Carlo de Olim AU - Marcos Ribeiro AU - Gary Liss AU - M. Diane Lougheed AU - Ryan Hoy AU - Amélie Forget AU - Lucie Blais AU - Jingqin Zhu AU - Susan M. Tarlo Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/45/1/266.abstract N2 - There are differences in the management of workers with work-related asthma within Canadian provinces. In Quebec, the compensation of a case of occupational asthma is usually based on the positivity of a specific inhalation challenge, whereas in Ontario, the diagnosis is usually based on serial peak expiratory flow (PEF), provocative methacholine concentration causing a 20% decrease in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (PC20) monitoring at and away from work, and specific skin-prick tests (that is, less often on specific inhalation challenges) [1]. We aimed: 1) to compare the delay between the onset of work-related asthma symptoms and the diagnosis of occupational asthma and work-exacerbated asthma between Quebec and Ontario; and 2) to assess and compare the healthcare utilisation in subjects with occupational asthma and work-exacerbated asthma between the provinces before and after the first assessment in two tertiary clinics in Quebec and Ontario that specialise in work-related asthma. Diagnosing work-related asthma decreased asthma-related healthcare utilisation in Quebec and Ontario http://ow.ly/CFrPk Provincial population-based administrative data were made available for record linkage of the study populations. In Ontario, record linkage was conducted by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and in Quebec, the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec. The opinions, results, and conclusions reported in this paper are those of the authors and are independent of these agencies: The authors want to thank Suzanne Dostaler for her administrative support of the AllerGen NCE grant. ER -