The age-adjusted rates of emergency room visits for asthma in Connecticut were nearly six times higher for Black people and five times higher for Hispanic people than that of whites in 2021.

“The disparity is large and unfortunately growing,” said Justin Peng, an epidemiology supervisor at the Department of Public Health. “We see a much bigger disparity among people who live in large cities, namely Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury and Bridgeport, people of a certain race, ethnic background, specifically the African American community, Hispanic community, where they experience about four or five times the burden of asthma hospitalization.”

The actual emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths are a little tough to compare due to the pandemic. They are quantified per 10,000 of the overall population.

Age-adjusted emergency room visits were at 37.9 for 2021 and even lower — 30.2 in 2020. But as recently as 2019 they were 54.2. In the last decade they had reached 73. But age-adjusted ER visits for Black and Hispanic people each have gone past 150 in that time period.

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