Childhood asthma hotspots mainly in regional Australia: study

Australia's asthma hotspots have been revealed in a new study released today, which found higher proportions of childhood cases in areas with greater socio-economic disadvantage and higher Indigenous populations.

The chronic lung disease is more common among children in regional parts of the country, occurring at more than double the national average in some communities, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) research found.

It highlighted hundreds of childhood asthma hotspots across the country, the bulk of which were in regional or remote areas of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania.

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Lead author Jahid Khan, from UNSW's School of Clinical Medicine, said a link between asthma and social deprivation had been expected, as with many chronic conditions but the scale of the difference across communities was greater than anticipated.

"We suspected there would be an elevated proportion of children with asthma in areas of greater deprivation, but to see such a difference within one country and so many areas of hotspots, it surprised us," Khan said.

The findings highlight the areas where further resources and more targeted intervention are needed, to reduce the burden of asthma among children, he said.

The researchers analysed asthma prevalence in children and teenagers, up to the age of 14, and sociodemographic features, in 2321 communities, using data from the 2021 Census - the first to collect information on diagnosed long-term health conditions.

The proportion of children with asthma in identified hotspots reached as high as 13.8 per cent in the Acton-Upper Burnie region on Tasmania's north coast, more than double the national average of 6.27 per cent for children, which was recorded across the analysed regions.

It was followed by Tasmania's East Devonport region (12.8 per cent) and the Mount Hutton – Windale region (12.9 per cent), in NSW's Lake Macquarie.

Hotpots were also found in the Central Coast, Riverina and New England regions in NSW, Shepparton, Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria, Ipswich and Logan in Queensland.