World Asthma Day: May 7, 2002. (NEHA News).

Mark your calendars--May is Asthma Awareness Month. NEHA is joining with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and other federal and nonprofit organizations to sponsor asthma education events around the country. The purpose is to raise awareness about the indoor and outdoor pollutants that trigger asthma episodes and to provide information on how to avoid them.

Asthma has reached epidemic proportions in the United States, affecting about 17 million people of all ages and races, particularly children. Asthma is a long-term, inflammatory disease in which the airways of the lungs constrict, causing wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing. According to a Department of Health and Human Services report, between 1980 and 1994, an alarming 8,000 to 26,000 new cases of asthma were reported in preschool-aged children each year. Today, an average of one in 13 school-aged children has asthma.

Exposure to environmental triggers commonly found in homes and schools, such as dust mites, mold, pet dander, cockroaches, and secondhand smoke, can bring on an asthma attack. Some triggers, such as dust mites and early childhood exposure to secondhand smoke, may even cause the onset of asthma in some individuals. There are simple steps, however, that people can take to reduce their exposure to these triggers and help prevent an asthma attack.

May 7, 2002, has been designated as World Asthma Day by the Global Initiative

for Asthma, a joint project of the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Organizations in countries throughout the world are working together to develop special activities to increase public awareness of the seriousness of asthma and actions they can take to improve asthma care and management.

Join NEHA and U.S. EPA by sponsoring an asthma awareness program to reduce indoor asthma triggers in homes and schools in your community. Hundreds of asthma education events will be taking place in schools, libraries, health clinics, hospitals, and state capitols around the country during May. Look for more information on U.S. EPA's Web site at <www.epa.gov/iaq/asthma>, where you can order a World Asthma Day Event Planning Kit. Working together, we can help families take control of asthma.