Asthma prescribing, ethnicity and risk of hospital admission: An analysis of 35,864 linked primary and secondary care records in East London

Inappropriate prescribing in primary care was implicated in nearly half of asthma deaths reviewed in the UK's recent National Review of Asthma Deaths. Using anonymised EMIS-Web data for 139 ethnically diverse general practices (total population 942,511) extracted from the North and East London Commissioning Support Unit, which holds hospital Secondary Uses Services (SUS)-linked data, we examined the prevalence of over-prescribing of short-Acting β 2-Agonist inhalers (SABA), under-prescribing of inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) inhalers and solo prescribing of long-Acting β 2-Agonists (LABA) to assess the risk of hospitalisation for people with asthma for 1 year ending August 2015. In a total asthma population of 35,864, multivariate analyses in adults showed that the risk of admission increased with greater prescription of SABA inhalers above a baseline of 1-3 (4-12 SABA: odds ratio (OR) 1.71; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.20-2.46, â