Asthma: key points

• Asthma is a significant cause of impaired quality of life, hospital admissions and mortality in Scotland. Based on cases identified in primary care registers, the estimated prevalence of active asthma in Scotland in 2008 was 5.5%. Over the four years that these data have been collected, the number on registers have changed very little.
• An estimated 5% of the Scottish population, around 270,000 people, consulted a general practitioner or practice nurse for asthma at least once during 2007/08. In all there were an estimated 490,000 consultations for asthma in Scotland in 2007/08. There was an increase in numbers between 2003/04 and 2004/05 but there has been little change since then.
• Scotland, like the rest of the UK, has a high prevalence of asthma compared to the rest of the world. However data from the ISAAC surveys suggest that asthma in children became less common between 1995 and 2002.
• Asthma was the underlying cause of 112 deaths in Scotland in 2007, but in the short term the number of deaths fluctuates too widely to show any clear trends.

Section updates: The last major update of this section was completed in June 2009. The next major update of this section is due to be carried out by end June 2010.