The financing of asthma care is the third topic of the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program Task Force Report on the Cost Effectiveness, Quality of Care, and Financing of Asthma Care. This working group explored the effects of financing on access to services, treatment of asthma, and potential health outcomes. Over the course of a year, the working group collected and analyzed information pertaining to the various types of public and private health care financing mechanisms, including both insurance-based and non-insurance-based issues. The group examined the published literature and gathered information from four public hearings conducted across the nation. The result of this synthesis of information on health care financing and asthma care is a set of 12 recommendations that seek to improve the financing of asthma care.
The epidemiologie and economic literature continues to illuminate important associations be¬ tween socioeconomic status and asthma morbidity. While asthma prevalence and morbidity remains disproportionately high among minority populations, socioeconomic status appears to explain much of the differences in rates. The economic costs of illness related to asthma and low-income populations may be linked to direct medical expenditures in hospital-based versus ambulatory-based asthma care. Problems in the financing and organization of health care for the poor may also contribute to the burden of asthma. A better understanding of the interplay between people, risk factors, and health care environments is necessary if we are to design successful health system improvements for the management of asthma in impoverished populations.
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