Letitia Harding: Asthma and Respiratory Foundation CEO on the uptick in Kiwis suffering from respiratory disease

Respiratory diseases costs the country more than $8 billion each year.

New research has found more Kiwis are suffering than previously thought, with around one million people affected by the disease annually.

Asthma and Respiratory Foundation Chief Executive Letitia Harding says the financial burden is huge.

"We base all of this on our prescriptions, our hospitalisations, time off work, school days lost - because then you have parents who take time off as well - a lot of factors go into this."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We find out this morning more of us are suffering
from respiratory disease. In twenty twenty one, it was seven
hundred thousand of us, which strikes me as a lot
of people. A new research suggesting that now figure that
figure is now over a million. It's an eight and
a half billion dollar problem too, apparently for the country.
The Esthma Respiratory Foundation Boss Letitia Harding's back, Well, this
is Letitia.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Morning, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Now, part of that will be the population size has
increased since twenty twenty one one, but materially as a
percentage of the population, it seems we're getting worse.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
If so, why, Yeah, it's a good question, of course.
I mean, some of these targets that we look at
and across this report, we look at you know, bonqut,
first childhood, bon clitis, pneumonia, et cetera. We found the
highest mortality, as you'd expect, was in that over sixty
five age group. So certainly that accounts mostly for your COPD.

(00:51):
And also, you know, with the asthma prevalence, we may
be picking up more as the other thing, which is
a good thing because obviously then we can treat it
more effectively.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Well, that's sure. These are robust numbers. We're confident of
number one, which is over a million, and number two, Well,
where do we get the eight and a half billion
from for the health system?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, So that's looking at all sorts of different factors
that go into I mean, we based a lot of
this on our prescriptions, hostilizations. You're looking at time off work.
Then you're also looking at school days lost for respiratory
hostellations for children, there was an estimated three hundred and
sixty thousand school days lost. But of course then you've
got to have parents who take time off work as well.

(01:30):
So a lot of factors go into this, and we
do this report every two years because really what we
want to be able to do is look at those
different DHB areas, what's highest in those areas, whether it's
childhood pneumonia or asthma, and then we can really target
those particular areas around the country as well.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
So how much are these things that we can literally
easily do something about versus it's just who we are,
where we are in the world, the air we breathe, etc.
And really there's not a lot we can do.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I think for us, what's been what we here
the start with and look at from the foundations perspectives,
how many of our guidelines are going out by you know,
the health professionals, how many how many of these are
being downloaded in accessed and we've actually seen a huge
increase double over the last couple of years. So that's
a good thing because of course we put out the

(02:18):
National Asthma Guidelines and the CPD guidelines, so that's really
important because it means that people are staying up to date,
knowing the different medications, knowing how asthma management plans work.
And then we see also that people are taking those
on board. So it's about you can't cure something like asthma,
but you can actually manage it better. And that's the
most important thing because of course we don't want the

(02:39):
high numbers you know, dying from esthma or you know,
over the years exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
La Tuasa appreciate time as always. Letiia Harding, who's the
ASPA and Respiratory Foundation CEO.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
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