Statewide— The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) has been awarded a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve the reach, quality, effectiveness and sustainability of asthma control services and help reduce the burden asthma places on Hoosiers. ISDH will receive $625,000 each year to align with the CDC’s Controlling Childhood Asthma-Reducing Emergencies initiative, which aims to improve childhood asthma outcomes.
The five-year grant will allow ISDH to strengthen existing organizational infrastructure to expand the reach of services through six EXHALE strategies:
- Education on asthma self-management;
- eXtinguish smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke;
- Home visits for trigger reaction and asthma self-management education;
- Achievement of guidelines-based medical management;
- Linkages and coordination of care; and
- Environmental policies or best practices to reduce indoor and outdoor asthma triggers.
Approximately 613,000 Indiana residents, including nearly 104,000 children, report they have asthma, according to the 2017 Indiana Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Among those, a large proportion report that their disease is not in control, with 39 percent reporting asthma symptoms in the last week, 24 percent reporting asthma symptoms every day in the last month and 54 percent saying they limited their activities due to asthma in the last month. Each year, approximately 27,000 Hoosiers are discharged from hospital emergency departments for asthma-related issues, according to the 2016-2017 Indiana Emergency Department Discharge Data.
“Increasing awareness of asthma and its triggers and educating people about the importance of asthma action plans and proper medication use can help Hoosiers manage their asthma,” said Ann Alley, Director of Chronic Disease, Primary Care, and Rural Health at ISDH. “This grant will help us reduce asthma deaths and reduce emergency department visits among people who currently have asthma.”
