Leadership through Action for New England's Children

The New England Asthma Regional Council (New England ARC)

The New England ARC is a coalition of public agencies, private organizations and researchers in New England working to address the environmental contributors to asthma. ARC's members bring the diverse perspectives and resources of health, housing, education, environment, managed care and advocacy organization together to focus on asthma. Leaders with knowledge, resources and determination have joined forces to swiftly identify and implement solutions to improve the lives of those with asthma. Advantages of a regional multi-disciplinary model for addressing a growing public health epidemic include expanded application of innovative models and linkages to a larger network of resources and potential partners.

Mission: To reduce the impact of asthma across New England, through collaborations of health, housing, education, and environmental organizations with particular focus on the contribution of schools, homes, and communities to the disease and with attention to its disproportionate impact on populations at greatest risk.

Alarming Increases in Asthma

New England has the highest regional rate of adult asthma in the nation, according to a groundbreaking report released by ARC in May 2003. Of the seven states that have the highest rates in the country of adult asthma, five of them are in New England. Nearly one million adults now have asthma in our region. From 1980 to 1996, the number of asthmatics has doubled to over 15 million. The highest rate of increase is in children over five years old. We know that asthma is strongly influenced by exposures in the environment, both indoors and outdoors. Recent research suggests asthma, in some cases, is caused by environmental exposures.

High Costs to Our Communities and Our Children

Asthma costs over $12.7 billion per year in direct health care costs and lost productivity. Each year, asthma is responsible for 10.1 million lost school days, 15 million missed or lost work days, 423,000 hospitalization and 5000 deaths. It is the leading cause of missed school days.

Policy Leadership

Combating asthma caused or worsened by exposures in homes, schools and communities requires action by government and non-government leaders from different sectors. The Council is the only multi-state cross agency coalition focused on asthma. The ultimate goal of ARC is the rapid development, sharing and implementation of creative, effective tools for controlling environmental exposures linked to asthma. In our first years, ARC moved quickly to develop a targeted action plan working on Surveillance, Outreach and Education, Exposure Reduction in Homes and Schools and Exposure Reduction in Communities. Council members challenge each other to remain accountable to their commitment to progress against the action plan. ARC provides an ongoing structure to benchmark member action and leverage each success.

Magnifying and Focusing Impact through Joint Action

The Council has had several early successes by sharing expertise and resources. Council members working with HUD and DOE developed and delivered training across New England on construction and maintenance practices that create healthier homes. This training is now being turned into guidance for public and private developers. All six states met and have shared their asthma surveillance priorities. Through this effort cross cutting issues are identified and states are sharing resources in solving them. The joint work leveraged a donation by a private company to cover adding two pediatric questions to each New England states BRFSS survey providing a foundation for a regionally comparable surveillance system. Educational materials developed by individual states for targeted audiences are now being shared across the region, avoiding duplication of effort and allowing us to cover critical audiences with targeted information. An effective voluntary school bus anti-idling program from one state is quickly spreading across the region.

These early successes can be easily and inexpensively copied to other states and regions. The challenge before the Council is to fund and manage implementation of groundbreaking joint projects which cross not only agency boundaries but state boundaries. There are five core projects on our agenda:

1) Promoting Healthy Housing building and maintenance practices;

2) Building a robust asthma surveillance system across New England that can link health data to the environment;

3) Reducing diesel bus pollution;

4) Promoting health schools; and

5) Encouraging public and private investments for in-home environmental interventions that diminish asthma triggers and improve asthma management.

Executive Committee

Chair
BETSY ROSENFELD, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, REGION I

Members
Suzanne Condon, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Claira Monier, New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority

Megan Sandel, MD, Boston Medical Center and DOCS4KIDS
Eileen Storey, MD, University of Connecticut Health Center

Committee Chairs
Asthma Surveillance: Vacant
Clean Buses: Stephen Majkut, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and Richard Rumba, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services
Environmental Investments: Betsy Rosenfeld, US DHHS, Reg I
Healthy Housing: Amy Rainone, Rhode Island Housing Department
Healthy Schools: Jackie Ascrizzi, Rhode Island Department of Education

Executive Director
Laurie Stillman
lstillman@tmfnet.org
Asthma Regional Council
The Medical Foundation
622 Washington Street, 2nd Floor
Dorchester, MA 02124
(617) 451-0049 x504

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