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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 23, 2003 Schumer
proposes $200 million to fight disease, with
NEW STUDY
SHOWING TWICE AS MANY KIDS HAVE ASTHMA AS EXPERTS THOUGHT
Schumer proposes immediate $200 million expansion of US Center for Disease Control's Inner-City Asthma Intervention program New York could see $50 million to teach parents and children how to treat and prevent asthma attacks now With a new study showing asthma rates in Harlem are twice as high as previously thought, US Senator Charles E. Schumer today proposed immediately expanding the Centers for Disease Control's successful Inner-City Asthma Intervention program that teaches parents and children how to treat and prevent asthma attacks. Schumer stood in residential East Harlem today in front of the 126th Street Diesel Bus Depot with parents and children who suffer from asthma, a doctor from Mt. Sinai who coordinates the Inner-City Asthma Intervention program in East Harlem, one of the doctors who conducted the new study, the head of the non-profit that coordinated the study, and New York City Councilman Phillip Reed. "Before we got this new data, we already thought asthma rates had doubled since 1980 – now we think it might be even two times worse than that for kids in poorer urban neighborhoods," Schumer said. "We need far more intervention so parents who know their kids have asthma learn how to treat it. The federal government already supports programs in New York City that do this, and we need more of them." According to the US Centers for Disease Control and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, asthma is the most common chronic disease in children and the sixth most common chronic condition overall in the US, resulting in a reported 10 million physician visits, 400,000 hospitalizations, one million emergency room visits, and 10 million missed school days annually. But preliminary results from a new study in Harlem indicate the problem of asthma may be far worse than previously thought. The new study by Harlem Hospital and the Harlem Children's Zone that examined every child in a 24-block area of Harlem – more than 2,000 kids – found that 25.5 percent of them have asthma, including many who were not previously diagnosed. Previous studies found the asthma rates to be approximately half that in high-risk neighborhoods like Harlem, where environmental factors including more air pollution, indoor living space that is more likely to be dusty or moldy, and higher smoking rates among adults have long led to higher asthma rates among children. "This study has exploded our assumptions about the number of our kids suffering from asthma, but we still know that asthma attacks are caused by a combination of factors present in homes, schools, and outside in neighborhoods," Schumer said. "We know we need to reduce dust in apartments and we must cut diesel bus fumes in the streets. And most important, we know that parents have to be aware of how to make best use of the asthma treatments available to them." Schumer noted that the new Harlem study found that parents who already seek medical care for their children's asthma often have a poor understanding of asthma and do not give their kids the asthma medication properly. For this reason, Schumer proposed immediately expanding the US Centers for Disease Control's Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program. According to the National Institutes of Health, the Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program is the federal government's most effective tool in treating asthma in urban youth because it trains parents to maximize the effectiveness of their children's medical treatment and to reduce the environmental factors at home that trigger asthma attacks. Currently, the CDC funds 23 Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program projects in a nationwide pilot program including four in New York City: the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital working in the Bronx, the Montefiore Medical Center working in the Bronx, the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine working in East Harlem, and the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine working with Queens Hospital in Elmhurst, Queens. The Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program does not currently serve Brooklyn or Staten Island. Specifically, the Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program hires and trains asthma counselors who teach parents how to: • Get the medical care for asthma that their children are entitled to • Administer their children's medication • Reduce environmental factors in the home that cause asthma attacks including mold, dust, and vermin • Find help to quit smoking through existing programs (One preliminary finding of the Harlem study is that children with asthma are about 50 percent more likely to live with someone who smokes than children who do not have asthma) • Prevent their child's asthma from leading to truancy (Another key finding of the new study is that asthma is the leading cause of school absenteeism in the neighborhood) • Obtain and use peak flow meters, nebulizers, dust mite covers and other asthma treatment medical equipment Each asthma counselor costs the CDC $100,000 a year. Each counselor can work with 80 families, many of which have more than one asthmatic child. Ms. Dora Gibbons , who joined Schumer today, has six children, four of whom have asthma – Jyreke Richardson, Autumn Richardson, Aquella Richardson and Nashika Spencer. "The Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program counselors are in place and they work,"Schumer said. "The only problem is we don't have enough of them." Schumer's additional $200 million for the Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program would support an additional 2,000 counselors who could help 160,000 families whose children suffer from asthma each year. Schumer said that New York could get as much as $50 million for these new counselors, which would support an additional 500 counselors helping 40,000 New York families. Reserving one out of every four dollars in the new Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program for New York gives the city a larger proportion of the new funds than it received of the old funds. Schumer noted that New York City is thought to have a higher asthma rate than other major cities and this should be reflected in the new distribution of Asthma Intervention Program funds. Schumer was joined today by Dr. Carolyn Rosen of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, who coordinates one of the current Inner-City Asthma Intervention Programs. "We have seen real impacts from the Asthma Intervention Programs – fewer hospitalizations, fewer trips to the emergency room, and fewer days out of school. These three impacts of asthma account for one quarter of the costs related to the disease, and that doesn't count the cost of parents missing work when their kids stay home from school," Dr. Rosen said. Schumer was also joined today by Councilman Philip Reed, who represents East Harlem in th New York City Council. "Nobody wants to be parochial when it comes to children's health, but East Harlem has the highest asthma rate in the country. The tragedy is that the attacks are easily preventable with proven, low cost interventions that work. We're supporting Senator Schumer's efforts to expand these programs because they work for our families," Councilman Reed said. Mr. Geoffrey Canada, the President and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone that coordinated the study also joined Schumer today. Schumer noted that the Harlem Children's Zone provides intensive, wide-ranging social services as part of the study, including training parents to help their asthmatic children. Schumer said that the Harlem Children's Zone is a model for implementation of the Inner-City Asthma Intervention Program. Schumer was also joined by Ms. Evelyn Cancel from East Harlem, whose daughter Mylah Carrie has asthma, and Dr. Ben Ortiz of Harlem Hospital – one of the authors of the new report. "Intensive asthma education and home environmental interventions have been proven again and again to lower the number of asthma attacks and the number of emergency room visits by children with asthma, which reduces cost burdens for all of us," Harlem Hospitals Dr. Ortiz said. Asthma is an inflammation and constriction of the airways that makes it difficult to breathe. Though scientists believe that only people with a genetic predisposition to asthma can become asthmatic, environmental factors like pollen, dust, animal dander, air pollution and cold air also contribute to development of the disease and can lead to attacks. Some of the worst asthma triggers are most prevalent in poorer communities, including the feces of cockroach and dust mites, cigarette smoke and mold and mildew. In New York City, many poorer neighborhoods have a heavy concentration of diesel bus and truck traffic. Tiny particles in diesel exhaust are another serious asthma trigger. ###
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