ABSTRACT
The epidemics of asthma deaths in the 1960s and 1970s have provided the
main motivation for monitoring asthma mortality. In this chapter, the author briefly reviews the background to these studies, before proceeding
to discuss the methodological issues and approaches involved. These
include (i) assessing possible artifactual explanations for an increase in
mortality; (ii) assessing possible explanations for a real increase in mortality
including considering whether an increase is due to a change in prevalence
or incidence (or whether there has been an increase in the case fatality
rate), considering whether some demographic groups are particularly
affected by an increase in mortality, and using this information to consider possible causal explanations for an increase in mortality; and (iii) conduct-
ing cohort or case-control studies of asthma deaths to test these causal
explanations.
