A STUDY has shown childhood asthma within Wangaratta and parts of the North East was almost twice as more prevalent than the national average
The University of New South Wales study identified the Hume region and surrounding areas as a childhood asthma cluster which was placing increased demand on local healthcare systems and increased costs for local families.
An asthma cluster is a group of neighbouring areas where the proportion of children up to 14 years of age with asthma, called childhood asthma prevalence, is higher than the national average of 6.3 per cent reported in the Census 2021.
High asthma clusters identified in the Hume region include Chiltern - Indigo Valley (10.48pc), Wangaratta (10.21pc), Rutherglen (10.19pc) and West Wodonga (9.09pc).
Bright and Mount Beauty (7.02pc), Yackandandah (7.9pc) and Myrtleford (6.83pc) also show a higher asthma prevalence in children than the national average.
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Asthma Australia has urged all political parties to prioritise the health of children in the Hume area by supporting their Healthy Futures for Kids with Asthma program, which aims to reduce hospital admissions for children with asthma and improve their quality of life.
Chief executive officer Kate Miranda said managing a child’s asthma can be a huge financial strain on families, with the cost of doctor visits, medicines, and time off work adding up.
“Our program is designed to meet this need—helping families manage asthma more effectively and keeping kids out of hospital,” she said.
According to Australian Institute for Health and Welfare studies, asthma was the most common chronic respiratory condition affecting children in Australia and the costliest respiratory disease for primary healthcare, with costs rising 50 per cent from 2018-19 to 2022-23.
Ms Miranda said the solution to managing the local cluster was keeping children out of healthcare and promoting better awareness and educated around asthma to affected parents and teachers.
“We want to work with children in the areas where they spend most of their time, so in the home and the community,” she said.
“We need people to better understand what their triggers are and with children they just need a bit more support because they don’t always recognise it.
“In these places where the rates are higher a teacher might have three children in a classroom with asthma, but they’ll be triggered by different things.
“It’s about them understanding that and being able to support the child.”
Ms Miranda said a complex interplay of environmental, genetic and social factors played a part in high asthma prevalence in the region, with the surrounding environment the most influential.
“The air quality of the area, allergens and housing conditions are the most prominent contributors to these geographical variations,” she said.
“In regional areas we know the access to GPs and wait times are longer and there’s all of these other socio-economic factors as well.”
Asthma Australia has reached out to Members of Parliament representing these areas, highlighting the need for targeted support and intervention.
“We’re targeting these areas, and we want parents who need more support to call our asthma educators, have a free consultation and be able to talk about the personalised circumstances specific to their child and their home,” Ms Miranda said.
“We’ve got a free one-hour first aid course, but we don’t have the resources to promote that specifically in Wangaratta and those surrounding areas, we have to let people to discover it.
“It’s just really practical, simple solutions.”
