Contact:	Dan Lavoie 510-418-1208 (cell) 212-502-6486 (office) dan@policylink.org

Breathing Easy from Home to School:

Fighting the Environmental Triggers of Childhood Asthma

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

 

FULL REPORT (PDF) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (PDF) PRESS RELEASE (PDF)

Our homes, schools, playgrounds and neighborhoods are riddled with preventable asthma triggers that leave
millions of children gasping for air. But a new report released today by PolicyLink and The California Endowment lays out a plan for what we all can do to make our children’s air safer and healthier.

 

The new report, Breathing Easy from Home to School: Fighting the Environmental Triggers of Childhood Asthma, provides a blueprint for dramatically reducing the community factors that contribute to asthma development and spark asthma attacks.

 

The asthma epidemic is clearly a crisis. Asthma affects more than 10 million children nationwide – about one in every seven school-aged kids. In some communities – particularly low-income communities and communities of color – as many as one in four children suffer from asthma.

 

Kids in these high-risk communities are exposed daily to countless environmental hazards: exhaust-spewing cars, trucks and buses on nearby highways; unregulated industrial plants; and dilapidated schools with poor ventilation and mold.

 

“Too many kids in poor communities are forced to breathe unhealthy air from the moment they get up to the moment they go to sleep,” said Judith Bell, president of PolicyLink. “We must eliminate the environmental asthma triggers that are leaving millions of our children gasping for air.”