Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adult Asthma-Related Healthcare Utilization

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unprecedented changes to chronic disease self-management and healthcare systems worldwide, including shifts in access to services and medications. While children with asthma had decreased exacerbations and healthcare encounters during 2020, the impact of lockdowns on adults with asthma, who faced different challenges during the pandemic than children, are less understood.

We sought to characterize changes in adult asthma-related healthcare utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 versus prior (2017-2019) and subsequent (2021-2024) years by leveraging electronic health record (EHR) data from a large, multi-hospital health system in a major US city.

We conducted a retrospective EHR database study of 42,242 adults with asthma who received care at Penn Medicine from 2017 to 2024. We analyzed weekly encounter counts across five encounter types (refill, telemedicine, telephone/audio, outpatient, emergency encounters) and prescriptions for short-acting beta agonists (SABA), inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), and oral corticosteroids (OCS). Generalized linear models assessed changes in asthma-related encounter rate in pandemic (2020) and post-pandemic (2021-2024) periods relative to pre-pandemic (2017-2019). We stratified on weekly intervals that captured transitional timepoints in healthcare utilization in 2020 (Weeks 1-8, 9-18, and 19-52).

In 2017-2019, there were on average 397 weekly visits for asthma at Penn Medicine; in 2020, the weekly average increased to 481. This change was driven primarily by a surge during the lockdown weeks in refill and telemedicine encounters by 123% and 36,445%, respectively and by a decrease in outpatient visits by 65%. During the lockdown weeks in 2020, asthma related prescriptions of SABA and ICS prescriptions increased 73% and 43%, respectively, compared to pre-pandemic years, while OCS prescriptions decreased by 5%. White patients showed earlier healthcare-seeking responses than other racial groups. Changes persisted in post-pandemic years as the average of weekly asthma-related visits was 445 in 2021-2024. Telemedicine remained 38-76 times higher than pre-pandemic baseline, refills doubled compared to 2017-2019 levels, and outpatient visits remained 35-43% below pre-pandemic levels.

COVID-19 transformed adult asthma care delivery and led to sustained increases in virtual care and medication refills potentially due to virtual care compensating for reductions in traditional outpatient encounters.