Posted Date: 12/22/2009
It was announced in early December that Senator Barbara Boxer’s appropriation request for a second year of funding for Kaweah Delta Health Care District’s Asthma Outreach Project was approved.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the San Joaquin Valley won the dishonorable designation of having the worst air in the country. Many of our Valley counties are considered the “asthma” capital of California – with one in every six children in the area suffering from asthma – six times the national rate. It is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs characterized by recurrent episodes of breathlessness, wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness. Asthma is a disease that requires regular attention from health care providers.
Many of Tulare County’s asthma suffers have a difficult time managing this disease and all too often, find themselves unable to prevent asthma “attacks”, leading them to seek necessary life saving treatment in the emergency room at Kaweah Delta Health Care District. In 2008, Kaweah Delta treated close to 1,400 patients for asthma in its emergency room, 435 of whom were children birth – 12 years of age. In fact, over half of those were children 0-5 years old, the fastest growing age group of children diagnosed with asthma. A report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between 1980 and 1994, the number of children 0-5 diagnosed with asthma increased by 160%, reaching epidemic proportions.
Kaweah Delta partners with the American Lung Association, Tulare County Asthma Coalition and various other regional air quality and environmental groups to implement this project in the rural communities of Exeter, Farmersville, Ivanhoe, Lindsay, and Visalia. The project includes clinical case management services, home visits to provide an environmental evaluation, education and remediation, community awareness and policy/advocacy work. The goal of the project is to increase awareness about the onset of asthma attacks to allow patients or care providers to catch them at the earliest stage or to avoid them completely. This will result in reducing doctor visits, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and the number of days children are unable to participate in play activities or attend school.
Kaweah Delta’s asthma project is coordinated through the Community Outreach Department. “We are very pleased with Senator Boxer’s support and we will continue to provide quality education and services to the patients in this area”, says John Tyndal Director of Community Outreach.
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