Helping Americans with Asthma

CDC’s National Asthma Control Program helps Americans with asthma achieve better health and improved quality of life and to reduce the overall hardship that asthma puts on the workforce, healthcare system, and communities.

We are a resource for people with asthma.

• We collect information and follow trends related to asthma.
• We share our knowledge with the programs we support and the asthma community.
• We fund programs to create localized efforts to assist people with asthma.
• We study the impact of asthma programs and treatment measures.

We use what we learn to re-invest in strategies that will help Americans with asthma.

Asthma Impacts Your State

Asthma affects an estimated 18.7 million adults (aged +18 years) and 7 million children (aged< 18 years) in the United States. CDC's National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) recently released the 2011 Asthma State Profiles to provide an overview of the burden of asthma in 34 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, all of which receive funding from the CDC National Asthma Control Program.

The 2011 Asthma State Profiles provide information about the number of people who are affected by asthma in each state. The Profiles address the following categories:

Adults and children Hospitalizations

Deaths Asthma patient education and medication use

Click on your state within the map to get more detailed information.

Learn More about Asthma

Asthma is a disease that

• affects your lungs,
• is one of the most common long-term diseases of children (adults can have it, too), and
• causes repeated episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and night time or early morning coughing.

The exact cause of asthma is unknown, and asthma cannot be cured. However, if you or your child has asthma, it can be controlled by doing the following:

• Receiving ongoing medical care and education about how to manage asthma and asthma attacks.
• Avoiding asthma triggers at school, work, home, outdoors, and elsewhere.

Triggers for asthma can include mold, tobacco smoke, outdoor air pollution, and infections linked to influenza, colds, and other viruses. Avoiding these triggers, along with using inhaled corticosteroids and other medicines, are the keys to preventing an asthma attack. Visit CDC’s National Asthma Control Program site to learn more about asthma and how you can manage it.

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Airing Asthma’s Story

Asthma Control for Preschoolers…CDC Helps Makes it as Easy as A B C!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Asthma Control Program (NACP) helps state and local programs teach people how to prevent asthma attacks and gain control over asthma.

The Problem
About one in ten preschool children is diagnosed with asthma. This age group has twice the number of asthma-related emergency department visits and overnight hospital stays as older kids. There are not many asthma management programs designed for parents of preschool children who need the tools and information to keep their children healthy.

CDC Supports Programs to Address the Problem of Asthma Control
CDC’s NACP funded a unique intervention for preschoolers, called Asthma Basics for Children (ABC). The ABC intervention resulted in positive changes including increased attendance at school and better interactions between parents and healthcare providers.

The Plan: Educate Families and Daycare Providers to Reduce Asthma Risk
CDC launched ABC in over 30 daycare centers in New York City to bring greater asthma control to young children. The local CDC-funded programs trained daycare center staff on ways to reduce the risk of asthma attacks. As a result, they knew how to find “triggers” of asthma – the things that might set-off an attack. For example, unneeded rugs were removed, daycare workers dusted more often, and employees changed air conditioner filters to keep room air cleaner.

Parents attended workshops, films, and question and answer sessions with doctors. The program also held trainings with children’s healthcare providers. These trainings stressed the importance of knowing how to talk with parents of children with asthma and how to decide on the best medicine for each child. They also helped develop asthma action plans for kids. An action plan is a personal plan to help people control their asthma. Everyone with asthma should have an action plan. Read the rest of this story…and learn about A, B, C’s Positive Outcomes.

CDC Audio and Video Products on Asthma

CDC Expert Commentary

These videos are part of collaboration between CDC and Medscape designed to deliver CDC's authoritative guidance directly to Medscape's physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals.

The Prescription for Wintertime Asthma Control

Dr. Elizabeth Herman tells clinicians how a few minutes of counseling can help keep their patients with asthma healthy all winter.
Watch This Video... (3:25)

The 15-Minute Asthma Visit

Dr. David Callahan outlines how clinicians can provide evidence-based care for patients with asthma in a 15-minute office visit.
Watch This Video... (5:32)

Asthma Control During Travel

Dr. David Callahan outlines how clinicians can prepare patients with asthma for symptom-free travel.
Watch This Video... (3:46)

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