Asthma education: the Canadian experience.

As in most Western industrialized nations, death rates from asthma have risen in Canada, particularly in the last decade.1 Although the reasons for this increase are not known with certainty, Canadian data show similarity to data from other nations leading to similar hypotheses and explanations. Mortality figures have risen steeply for those aged 15 to 34 years, an age at which other respiratory illnesses such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are unlikely to cause diagnostic confusion.1 It therefore seems unlikely that changes in diagnostic trends or coding account for the phenomenon described in Canada. As seen in other nations, hospitalizations for asthma care rose in the 1980s, and this trend was accompanied by a steep rise in expenditures for asthma medications.2-6 It is plausible, given these data, that asthma prevalence has increased in Canada, a trend also described in other industrialized nations.