Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease prevalence and health-related quality of life in carolinas

BACKGROUND: COPD is the 3rd leading causes of mortality in the United States. Despite the prevalence of well-established risk factors for COPD, reliable state-specific COPD prevalence estimates across population subgroups and state-level information on the impact of COPD on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) are sparse. To fill this gap, we investigated how COPD affects different population subgroups and examined associations between COPD and four core measures of HRQOL using BRFSS. METHODS: COPD prevalence rates were age-standardized to the 2000 standard US population; except those associated with specific age-groups. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR's) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for HRQOL, adjusting for race, age, gender, education, income, smoking status, and health insurance coverage. RESULTS: The overall age-adjusted prevalence of self-reported COPD among in Carolinas in 2011 was around 7%. As expected, prevalence of self-reported COPD increased with age. Females had higher prevalence of self-reported COPD than males. Self-reported COPD prevalence was highest among current smokers, while former smokers also had higher prevalence of self-reported COPD than non-smokers. Prevalence of self-reported COPD decreased markedly at higher levels of education and income. However, self-reported COPD prevalence did not differ by race and health insurance coverage. Compared to community-dwelling adults without COPD, those with COPD were more likely to report fair/poor general health status or more physically unhealthy days or more mentally unhealthy days, and more days of activity limitation. CONCLUSIONS: COPD is a highly prevalent disease in Carolinas, and associated with poorer HRQOL.