Hospitals Find Asthma Hot Spots More Profitable To Neglect Than Fix

Summerville and her family live in the worst asthma hot spot in Baltimore: ZIP code 21223, where decrepit houses, rodents and bugs trigger the disease and where few community doctors work to prevent asthma emergencies. One mom there wields a BB gun to keep rats from her asthmatic child.

Residents of this area visit hospitals for asthma flare-ups at more than four times the rate of people from the city’s wealthier neighborhoods, according to data analyzed by Kaiser Health News and the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service.

Baltimore paramedic crews make more asthma-related visits per capita in 21223 than anywhere else in the city, according to fire department records. It is the second-most-common ZIP code among patients hospitalized for asthma, which, when addressed properly, should never require emergency visits or hospitalization.

Read the full article in the Washington Post.

Additional coverage can be viewed in the Baltimore Sun.