ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Defining Emergency Department Asthma Visits for Public Health Surveillance, North Carolina, 2008–2009

Diagnosis Group	Position of Asthma Diagnosis
	1	2	3	4	5	6–11
Children (0–17 y), %
Diseases of the respiratory system	100	46	34	30	31	35
Diseases of the heart	0	1	2	2	2	2
Abdominal pain	0	2	3	5	4	3
Injury or poisoning	0	18	16	13	13	11
All other diagnosis clusters	0	33	45	50	50	49
Adults (≥18 y), %
Diseases of the respiratory system	100	36	21	15	14	13
Diseases of the heart	0	7	8	9	11	14
Abdominal pain	0	10	12	12	11	10
Injury or poisoning	0	2	5	6	5	5
All other diagnosis clusters	0	44	55	58	59	58

Figure 1. Grouped primary diagnosis by asthma diagnosis position, North Carolina emergency department visits, 2008–09, with an asthma diagnosis in any diagnosis position (child visits, N = 100,886; adult visits, N = 249,403).

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Procedure Group	1	2	3	4	5	6-11
Children (0–17 years), %
Asthma	37	18	10	5	4	4
Cardiac	1	1	1	2	3	6
Adults (≥18 years), %
Asthma	21	13	6	3	2	1
Cardiac	12	10	10	11	13	18

Figure 2. Grouped respiratory and cardiac procedures by asthma diagnosis position, North Carolina emergency department visits, 2008–09, with an asthma diagnosis in any diagnosis position and 1 or more procedure codes assigned (child visits, N = 13,125; adult visits, N = 49,265).

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