Years of life lost due to asthma in a population-based 10-year study in Yazd, Iran

INTRODUCTION: Asthma is a prevalent disease in both children and adults. Significant progress in the management of asthma and prevention of asthmatic attacks resulted in a reduction of asthma deaths, but there is a variation among different regions based on health-care access and environmental factors. We aimed to investigate the trend of asthma mortality during a 10-year period in Yazd Province, a region in the center of Iran. METHODS: We obtained our data from the death registry of Yazd health center. This registry collects data from hospitals, clinics, forensic medicine department, and cemeteries. All deaths due to asthma from 2002 to 2011 were included in our study. We used the remaining life expectancy of each person at death and sex group to calculate the years of life lost (YLL) due to asthma. RESULTS: Nearly 10,371 years of life was lost due to asthma in our study (M/F ratio of 1.29). Asthma mortality rate increased with age, rising sharply after age 50. Average YLL per death was 18.6 years. Asthma mortality rate decreased from 6.66/100,000 in 2002 to 3.97 in 2011. YLL from asthma among men decreased from 796 in 2002 to 338 in 2011, but among women, it showed an increase from 335 to 534 at the same time. CONCLUSION: The trend of reduction in asthma mortality is not similar between different age and gender groups. Further studies are needed to determine the cause of increasing trend among more vulnerable groups.