You can help RHA prevent, manage and cure lung disease.
Policies that address air quality, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer and tobacco control help prevent, manage and cure lung disease. With your active engagement, RHA works to enact changes that will reduce youth smoking, help children with asthma manage their disease, and clean up our air for everyone who breathes. These changes benefit people living with lung disease today and generations to come.
Our advocacy successes are a reflection of the dedicated volunteers who make these efforts possible. Through your visits, calls and emails to legislators, elected officials learn what it is like to live with COPD, to manage a child’s asthma or to care for people living with lung cancer. Giving a voice to people living with lung disease is critical to introducing and passing lung-friendly policies.
With improved health outcomes and decreased costs to the health system, it is imperative to remember that protecting access to care is good for lung health. Respiratory Health Association’s issue brief, the Affordable Care Act is Good for Lung Health, examines how the ACA’s possible repeal will impact vulnerable populations, both locally and nationally, with a particular focus on the numbers who will lose their health care coverage. RHA will continue to advocate for access to care for the lung health community.
To better equip schools to handle asthma emergencies, RHA worked with public health partners to pass the Asthma Episode Emergency Response Protocol. This law ensures that uniform asthma response measures are in place in all Illinois schools and that all teachers have access to proper asthma management training and asthma emergency quick-reference documents. In collaboration with several state agencies, RHA developed an online training for school staff, which is accessible in our Asthma Management resources.
RHA and its allies helped secure passage of Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act, assuring greater use of renewable energy in the state and further reductions in air pollution from other energy sources — a law that will avoid thousands of asthma episodes. RHA continues to defend the funds that are dedicated to advancing clean, renewable energy in Illinois. Visit the Clean Energy section of our Library for additional information.
Respiratory Health Association applauds the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and its partners for recognizing the need for a COPD National Action Plan. This plan will serve as a springboard for policy change that will help COPD patients and their caregivers, and foster better communications among healthcare providers, COPD caregivers, and patients, all in an effort to reduce the burden of COPD and improve health outcomes for people living with the disease. RHA worked for years with partners to urge federal leaders to develop the national action plan and we look forward to playing a key role in its implementation.
Protecting health is an investment that saves lives and saves money. The federal Public Health and Prevention Fund invests in community-based prevention initiatives, including childhood immunizations, clinical prevention and tobacco use prevention programs, among others. Funds like this pay huge dividends in the future in human health and reduced healthcare costs.
For example, an investment of $11 million in prevention funding in Chicago during the last decade resulted in an historic decrease in youth smoking in Chicago. This decrease in youth smoking will yield a savings of $300 million in future health care costs.
Unfortunately, in the recent national healthcare debates, Congress has proposed fully eliminating the Prevention Fund. While healthcare debates have stalled, we will continue to advocate for sustainable prevention programs that save lives and reduce healthcare costs.
Raising the minimum legal sales age of tobacco products from 18 to 21, or Tobacco 21, is a fast growing, nationally recognized youth tobacco prevention strategy. Community-based Tobacco 21 ordinances are important building blocks toward a statewide Tobacco 21 law.
Visit the Tobacco Control section of our Library for additional information.
Air pollution can endanger your lung health in outdoor and indoor environments. Breathing air pollutants can cause numerous health problems, including lung cancer, asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes and premature death. Respiratory visits to health care providers’ offices, emergency room treatments and hospitalizations all increase when air quality worsens.
Visit the Air Pollution section of our Library for additional information.
Join our E-Advocacy Team and receive Action Alerts about current policy change efforts.
Become an Advocacy Champion to share your personal story with lung disease with lawmakers.
Health Professionals for Healthy Lungs engages health providers across Illinois in advocacy for sound health care and clean policy.
For more information about these policy initiative, contact Matt Maloney, Director of Health Policy, via email at [email protected] or by phone at (312) 628-0233.