Chest
Volume 110, Issue 1, July 1996, Pages 58-61
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Clinical Investigations: Asthma
Incidence of Occupational Asthma and Persistent Asthma in Young Adults Has Increased in Finland

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To investigate the incidence of occupational asthma and its relationship to new cases of persistent asthma, the data was collected from two national registers which cover practically all new cases of both diseases. In 1986 to 1993, the annual incidence of persistent asthma in adults (from 15 to 64 years) increased from 6,645 to 8,056 (21%). The incidence of asthma in women increased from 3,302 to 4,717 (43%). In the age group of 15 to 29 the increase was 91%, in 30 to 49 it was 60%, and in 50 to 64 the increase was 7%. Among men, the annual incidence remained stable. However, in the age group of 15 to 29 it increased by 87%, in 30 to 49 by 46%, while a decrease of 43% was detected in the age group of 50 to 64 years. During the same period, the annual incidence of occupational asthma increased from 227 to 386 (70%), from 109 to 185 (70%) in women and from 118 to 201 (70%) in men. In 1993 the population in Finland in the age range from 15 to 64 was 2.026 million. Thus, the incidence of persistent asthma was 0.4%. The proportion of newly diagnosed occupational asthma out of all new cases of asthma was 4.8%.

Section snippets

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The data on the new cases of occupational asthma was collected from the register of the occupational diseases in Finland. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) has kept the register since 1964. FIOH collects the data of newly detected cases of occupational diseases (1) from all the claims that have been sent to insurance companies, (2) from newly reported cases of occupational diseases collected by the Finnish Occupational Safety Administration, and (3) from adding all new cases

RESULTS

There was a significant yearly increase in the number of new cases of persistent asthma in Finland in 1986 to 1993 (Fig 1, Table 1). The number of cases in the age group of 15 to 64 years increased from 6,645 to 8,056 (21%). The annual incidence of persistent asthma in women increased from 3,302 to 4,717 (43%). In the age group of 15 to 29 the increase was 91%, in the group of 30 to 49 years it increased 60%, and in the age group of 50 to 64 years the increase was 7%. The total number of new

DISCUSSION

The present study demonstrates an increase in the incidence of persistent asthma in young adults. In the age group of 50 to 64 years there was a decrease in the incidence of asthma in men, and only a slight increase in women. An earlier study has shown a six-fold increase in the prevalence of asthma, from 0.29% to 1.79%, in young Finnish men during the period of 1966 to 89.3 An increasing prevalence of asthma has also been encountered in other western countries, the explanation of which still

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank systems analyst Jouni Toikkanen, MSocSci, for his valuable help in collecting data from the registers.

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