Government stepping up to help fight asthma among minorities
Asthma affects all races, genders and creeds, but for some reason, minority children suffer disproportionately from the chronic disease than others in the population. No more, says the EPA, who unveiled the Coordinated Federal Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Asthma Disparities, which will attempt to get the numbers down.
Through the plan, the EPA hopes to target the main contributing factors as to why there is such a gap between different racial or ethnic communities who suffer from asthma, and work to help minorities breathe a little easier. According to a news report released by the EPA, 16 percent of African American children and 16.5 percent of Puerto Rican are afflicted with asthma, which is more than double the figures for other communities.
Many factors contribute to this, including income. The pollution levels that many low-income minorities are exposed to are much higher than those in more affluent communities, an issue discussed before in this article from the blog.
“Low-income and minority communities often face an unacceptable burden of pollution in this country, diminishing their economic potential and threatening the health of millions of American families,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The plan aims to bring medication and information to areas where these resources are currently lacking, and currently outside of the budget of many asthma sufferers. By bringing proper specialists and goods to these communities, missed school days go down and money is saved, along with lives.
Proactive measures are still within the budget of many asthma sufferers. Allergy Be Gone provides discounted and affordable allergen fighters like the Honeywell Quiet Clean Air Purifier, among others. The goal of this plan is that as people are more educated on how to battle asthma, medicines and technologies that can help bring down the numbers will become more widely available to the communities they need to reach.