Medical News Today reports that one out of ten people in North American now suffers from asthma. (That's around 35.5 million people!)

Since the 1960s, the rate of asthma among North American children has increased each decade by as much as 75%.

Professor Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand points out, ‘The prevalence of asthma is higher in certain ethnic groups such as Blacks and Hispanics compared with the white population. In the United States the rates of hospital admission for patients of color compared with white patients are 50% higher in adults and up to 150% higher in children.’

The steady increase in asthma cases, however, affects all ethnic groups, and asthma mortality rates are rising, too.

‘The rate of asthma mortality in the United States in the mid-1990s was approximately double that in the mid-1970s,’ says Beasley.

See our Asthma Solution Guide to learn more about asthma.