Vermont Asthma Program: Asthma Data
The Vermont Department of Health Asthma Program is currently funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to create a comprehensive asthma surveillance system in Vermont. The CDC created an asthma surveillance "conceptual framework" as a model to guide states in identifying potential data sources and indicators to monitor the trends of asthma across each state.
This framework contains two main sections, indicators and data sources. Indicators help us to better understand how asthma affects Vermonters of all ages, and include such things as risk factors (i.e. smoking), prevalence (i.e. the number of individuals with asthma), absenteeism from school or work, emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and mortality data. To aid us in learning more about these indicators, we use a variety of data sources including surveys, population-based datasets, pharmacy data, school records, claims data, emergency department data, hospital discharge data, and vital records (i.e. death certificates).
For more information about the Vermont asthma surveillance system, please contact:
Allison La Pointe, MPH
Asthma Epidemiologist
Vermont Department of Health
802-863-7654
alapoin@vdh.state.vt.us