Asthma Mortality and Hospitalizations in Mexico from 2010 to 2018: Retrospective Epidemiologic Profile

Acute respiratory infections have been established as the principal cause of disease in the Mexican population from 2000 to 2018; however, even when these diseases may aggravate asthma, there is a lack of epidemiologic evidence on the health outcomes when both conditions coexist. Learning about the asthma hospitalizations trends will help us identify monthly variation of hospitalizations, vulnerable groups, needed services, and improvements in therapeutics and prevention. This study aims to analyze the variation in asthma hospitalizations and mortality during the 2010-2018 period in Mexico. Data were obtained from the General Board of Health Information (DGIS) Open Access datasets, which were analyzed taking hospital discharges and hospital deaths recorded from 2010 to 2018 from all public hospitals nationwide. The binomial logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the association between patient ages, hospitalization month, and mortality. The death rate from asthma in Mexico decreased between 2010 and 2018. Still, the hospital mortality rate shows recent improvement; however, prognosis of hospitalized patients depends on their age, accurate diagnosis, length of hospital stay and occurrence of nosocomial infection.