Asthma is Point of Emphasis for Health Department

              May is Asthma Awareness Month and Public Health asks you to look at what you can do to protect yourself from asthma.

            “It is important to remember that you can control your asthma,” Douglas County Health Director Dr. Adi Pour said. “If you or a family member has asthma, your doctor can tell you how to reduce the risks of an episode.”

            After steadily falling for a few years, asthma rates have been on the increase in Douglas County.  In the most recent statistics, the percentage of adults who have ever been told they have asthma was at 14.7 percent, up from 11.4 percent in 2007. The rate of adults who currently have asthma is at 9.8 percent, up from 8.1 percent in 2006. 

            The figures are far more alarming in the African-American community, where the incidence of asthma is nearly two and a half times as high as in the rest of Douglas Count – a statistic that is reflected nationally.

            According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the following steps can help you control asthma:

·         Receiving ongoing medical care and education about how to manage asthma and asthma attacks.

·         Developing an asthma action plan.

·         Avoiding asthma triggers at school, work, home, outdoors, and elsewhere.

            Asthma triggers can include mold, tobacco smoke, outdoor air pollution, and infections linked to influenza, colds, and other viruses. Avoiding those triggers and using inhaled corticosteroids and other medicines can help you avoid an asthma attack.

            There are millions of reasons to do what we can to reduce the effects of asthma: such as 25 million Americans, including 7 million children, who suffer from this common and lifelong chronic disease.  There are millions of missed opportunities, too, with an estimated 10 million days of school absenteeism in 2010 due to asthma.

              If that is not enough, there also are billions of reasons to learn how to manage asthma, including an estimated annual $50 billion in medical costs that are associated with asthma.

            “Asthma cannot be cured,” Dr. Pour said. “But, it can be managed if you learn the warning signs of an attack and avoid the triggers that cause those episodes.”