Rates of asthma in children and adults have risen steeply over the last two decades, depriving millions of people from engaging fully and actively in school, work, and community, and causing hundreds of preventable deaths.
The national asthma management guidelines, developed by asthma researchers and clinicians under the guidance of the National Institutes of Health, identify control of environmental triggers as one of four essential elements of preventing asthma attacks. Environmental and occupational exposures, including allergens, chemicals and air pollutant mixtures also contribute to the initial onset of the disease.
Catalyzing Change
For over a decade, the Lowell Center played a leadership role in asthma prevention with two initiatives:
- Ensuring access by people with asthma to services that help reduce environmental triggers.
- Accelerating attention to how to prevent asthma in people previously free of the disease. See Primary Prevention.