Created in 1999, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Asthma Control Program (NACP) has helped to improve the quality of asthma clinical care, increased the effectiveness of asthma management in school, supported policies to reduce air pollution, and strengthened systems to sustain asthma home visiting services.
Those gains are now at extreme risk: as part of the new Administration’s deep staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s Air Quality and Asthma branch and the NACP have been eliminated. State NACP funding is still in place, but its future is very much in doubt.
Now is the time to use our collective voices to advocate for the NACP and the remarkable work it supports in communities across the country.
You can take two steps to help:
- Sign on to this letter to Congress from the American Lung Association, which calls for protecting the NACP; and/or sign on to this advocacy letter from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, which calls for protecting the NACP as well as other critical CDC programs.
- If you live or work in a state that benefits from NACP funding, please share your perspectives on the value of NACP efforts.
Here in California, for example, the NACP supports California Breathing at the California Department of Public Health. The program analyzes and publishes asthma data, runs a training program for asthma home visitors, and supports quality improvement initiatives within the healthcare system, among other activities. Similarly important efforts are happening across the nation.
Don’t hesitate – please voice your support for the NACP today.