News: Higher cases of asthma, COPD in disadvantaged neighborhoods, analysis finds

A heightened incidence of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may be linked to more socially and environmentally disadvantaged neighborhoods, according to a new analysis presented at the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) 2024 Annual Meeting.

The study used data from the Centers for Disease Control and the United States Census Bureau to measure both sociodemographic characteristics as well as the prevalence of asthma and COPD among adults, dividing neighborhoods into quartiles based on the 2022 Environmental Justice Index (EJI) to measure environmental burden and social vulnerability, Medscape Medical News reported. They found that 11% of the population in neighborhoods with the highest EJI had asthma and 8.7% had COPD, compared to 9% of the rest of the population having asthma and 2.9% having COPD.

“We broke it down into four categories of neighborhoods, and everything outside of the top-most advantaged neighborhoods had increased asthma and COPD and went in a stepwise fashion where, as you went to more disadvantaged neighborhoods, the prevalence went higher and higher," said Stephen Mein, MD, a pulmonary fellow at Harvard Medical School, Boston and co-author of the study, during the presentation.

Mein pointed to increasing evidence of complex interaction between exposures, saying, “We know that air pollution potentially affects low-income vs. high-income neighborhoods differently, and so being able to combine both the socioeconomic and the environmental [exposures give] a complete picture of the neighborhood analysis.”

During the presentation, they also discussed the usefulness of EJI more generally as a tool to look at the patient as a whole and the burden in their area, not just the specific disease, simply by plugging in their zip code. The database is available and free for anyone to use.

Editor’s note: To read Medscape Medical News’ coverage of this story, click here.