Recent increase in asthma mortality in Brazil: A warning sign for the public health system

Abstract

Objective: To provide an update on asthma mortality trends in Brazil and its regions between 2014 and 2021. Methods: This was a retrospective descriptive observational study based on asthma mortality data from the Brazilian National Ministry of Health Mortality Database for the 2014-2021 period. Results: In the study period, there were 18,584 asthma deaths in Brazil, with an annual increase of 2.5%, corresponding to 0.03 deaths/100,000 population (95% CI, 0.01-0.04; p = 0.01). The northeastern region of the country had the highest prevalence of asthma deaths (1.50 deaths/100,000 population), and the southern region showed the greatest variation in the study period (44%). We observed a higher proportion of deaths among females and elderly patients, and when analyzing asthma deaths by place of occurrence, we observed that 28% of all deaths occurred at home. Conclusions: Asthma mortality remains high and shows an increasing trend for the first time in the past decades. This constitutes an important public health concern, given the treatable nature of the disease.