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Experts Constructing Asthma Tracking System

Release Date: 9/19/2000
Contact Information: David Sternberg (215) 814-5548 & Carol Febbo (215) 814-2076

David Sternberg, 215-814-5548 & Carol Febbo, 215-814-2076

BALTIMORE - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today held a workshop to create a regional asthma tracking system in the mid-Atlantic region. The meeting at Harbor Hospital Center in Baltimore is part of a regional strategy to combat asthma.

“We’re here to identify and make available the necessary data to help us control the asthma epidemic in the mid-Atlantic region. We’re exploring ways to link existing data, making it available to a wider community of users, and to develop a regional asthma tracking system,” said EPA Deputy Regional Administrator Thomas Voltaggio.

Nationally, asthma is now at epidemic proportions. Over the past 15 years, the number of children with asthma has doubled. Approximately 5.5 million children are affected with at least 150,000 hospitalizations due to asthma each year. Nationwide, there has been a three-fold increase in deaths due to asthma from 84 in 1977, to 280 in 1995. There are more than 10 million missed school days each year. Medical costs resulting from asthma were estimated at $6.2 billion in 1990, and $14 billion in 1996.

Speakers at today’s workshop included Voltaggio; Maryland Secretary of Health Georges Benjamin: Deputy Mayor Jeanne Hitchcock of Baltimore, Woodie Kessel, assistant U.S. surgeon general; Kevin Vaughan, regional director, U.S. HHS; Tom Burke of Pew Environmental Health Commission at Johns Hopkins University; and a scientific team from NASA.

The mid-Atlantic Regional Asthma Initiative kicked-off with a conference last November at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. A priority for many was the need for local data collection and monitoring and for high quality data that can be compared among multiple sources. This meeting addressed these issues as part of an effort to create a regional asthma tracking system. Regional policy makers and experts in asthma and public health are working with experts in information technology to create this system.