[Survey on the prevalence rate of bronchial asthma in Beijing area among the residents aged over 14 years from 2010 to 2011].

Objective: To survey the prevalence rate of bronchial asthma in Beijing area among residents aged over 14 years.

Methods: In accordance with stratified cluster random sampling, epidemiological questionnaires were performed in Beijing residents aged over 14 years during household visits from February 2010 to August 2011. Asthma was diagnosed on the basis of case history, clinical signs and lung function test. The statistical software SAS 9.2 was employed to analyze the epidemiological status of asthma.

Results: In a sampling population of 61 107, 57 647 questionnaires were effective. Among 687 asthmatics, there were 296 males and 391 females. The overall prevalence rate of asthma was 1.19% (687/57 647). The asthma prevalence rates were 1.09% (418/38 468) and 1.40% (269/19 179) in urban and suburb Beijing respectively and the prevalence rate of asthma in suburb area was significantly higher than that of urban area (χ(2) = 10.850, P = 0.001). The prevalence rates of males and females were 1.06% (296/27 947) and 1.32% (391/29 700) respectively and the prevalence rate of asthma in females was much higher than that of males (χ(2) = 8.098,P = 0.004). Significant differences existed among different age groups (χ(2) = 404.874, P = 0.000) and residents aged at or over 71 years had the highest prevalence rate. The prevalence rates in urban and suburb Beijing area increased by 1.12 and 2.26 folds respectively than that of 2002. And 198 asthmatics were first diagnosed in this survey and accounted for 28.8% (198/687) in all asthma diagnosed asthmatics.

Conclusions: The prevalence rate of asthma in Beijing area among residents aged over 14 years increased greatly from 2010 to 2011. And the epidemiological data may reflect the current distribution status of asthma in Beijing area.