LONGVIEW – Angelina Mclean said it’s tough to hold down a job when your child has severe asthma like her son, 4-year-old Spencer Deaver.

“If he catches anything with respiratory symptoms, he ends up in the hospital for days,” said Mclean of Longview. “When you’re in the hospital for a week with your child, you can’t work. And if you do have a job, they want you to go right back to work the day you get out of the hospital, and you’re exhausted.”

Cowlitz County has the second-highest asthma rate in the state, with 13.8 percent of adults afflicted, according to the county Health Department. That’s just barely behind Whitman County. And the state’s asthma rate is one of the highest in the nation, at 9.1 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Local health officials can’t pinpoint exactly why Cowlitz County’s rate is so high.

“The why, as far as asthma is concerned, it’s kind of a question mark,” said Dr. Jennifer Vines, county Health Department health officer. “We do know that factors (for asthma) include allergies, family history of allergies or asthma and early exposure of babies to tobacco smoke.”

Cowlitz County’s high rate of smokers (22 percent versus 17 percent in the state) and an equally high number of women who smoke while pregnant (22 percent versus 10 percent in the state), could be contributing factors, Vines said. Air pollution, whether from industry or vehicles, also could be a factor, Vines said.

“Being in the corridor of Interstate 5 certainly could be giving us more exposure to carbon monoxide,” she said.

The damp climate, which encourages growth of molds and mildew, may also trigger attacks.

“We need to collect more data and do more investigation,” Vines said.

The state Department of Health estimates more than 5,000 people are hospitalized every year as a direct result of asthma.

“We do seem to have quite a bit of asthma,” said David Seigel, St. John Medical Center director of respiratory care. “Our emergency department is quite often filled with lots of asthmatic patients, whether they be kids or adults.”

Seigel said his 190-bed hospital sees as many respiratory cases as the equivalent of what a 300-bed hospital gets. “We see chronic lung disease, asthma, emphysema and bronchitis,” he said. “Asthma is the most prevalent because it affects all age groups.”