Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of death, illness, and disability in the United States. In 2000, 119,000 deaths, 726,000 hospitalizations, and 1.5 million hospital emergency department visits were caused by COPD. An additional 8 million cases of hospital outpatient treatment or treatment by personal physicians were linked to COPD in 2000. An estimated 10 million adults were diagnosed with COPD in 2000, but information from a national health survey suggests that as many as 24 million Americans are affected.

COPD and Women

From 1980 to 2000, the COPD death rate for women grew much faster than the rate for men. For US women, the rate rose from 20.1 deaths per 100,000 to 56.7 deaths per 100,000 over that 20-year span, while for men the rate grew from 73.0 to 82.6 deaths per 100,000.

US women also had more COPD hospitalizations than men and more emergency department visits than men in 2000. Additionally, 2000 marked the first year in which more women than men died from COPD. However, the proportion of the US population aged 25-54 years, both male and female, with mild or moderate COPD has declined over the past quarter century, suggesting that increases in hospitalizations and deaths might not continue.

Why the Increase in Women?

These increases probably reflect the increase in smoking by women, relative to men, since the 1940s. In the United States, a history of current or former smoking is the risk factor most often linked to COPD, and the increase in the number of women smoking over the past half-century is mirrored in the increase in COPD rates among women. The decreases in rates of mild and moderate COPD in both men and women aged 25-54 years in the past quarter century reflect the decrease in overall smoking rates in the United States since the 1960s.