Half as many children in the United States were diagnosed with asthma in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years, and Rutgers researchers think fewer colds may be part of the reason.
In a new Rutgers study, published in Respiratory Research, researchers examined the rates of new asthma diagnoses in a large commercial insurance claims database during the first year of the pandemic compared with rates of new diagnoses during the previous three years.
Using the Health Core Integrated Research Database, researchers identified individuals under 18 years old with no prior diagnosis of asthma and compared rates of new diagnoses from 2020 with rates during the previous three years. They found that diagnosis rates of asthma decreased by 52 percent across the first year of the pandemic compared with results from previous years.
