Campaign Update:
Raising COPD Awareness State by State
More and more states are convening coalitions and developing statewide plans to address COPD. To help support these efforts, the Learn More Breathe Better campaign has developed an overview of tools and resources available to state coalitions, including opportunities for co-branding educational materials and public service announcements. Click here to learn more.
Based on the positive feedback we’ve received when featuring state-based activities in this e-newsletter, we’re dedicating the entire first issue of the new year to an overview of some current state activities. Please know that this is just a sampling of what’s taking place – we hope to include additional updates in future editions. Let us know what’s going on you your state. Click here to send us an email.
We congratulate all of our partners who are working to bring COPD awareness to their home states and we stand ready to support your efforts as your coalitions are built and your statewide plans are developed.
We Want to Hear From You! We have received hundreds of orders for the COPD Learn More Breathe Better Resource Kit since it was released in September. If you ordered a resource kit, we want to hear from you. How are you using the kit? Which materials do you find most helpful in your outreach? Have you ordered additional materials? Please complete the evaluation form included in the kit or complete a form online* and return it to us as soon as possible. Your feedback is critical in shaping the future of the campaign. Thank you!
Learn More Breathe Better – In the News
This fall, the Learn More Breathe Better campaign generated an estimated 38.7 million media impressions through print, radio, and television coverage of the disease and campaign. Highlights included:
- A front page story in The New York Times featuring NHLBI's Learn More Breathe Better campaign as, part of its “Six Killers” series on the leading causes of illness and death in the United States. Following The New York Times coverage, similar stories ran in six print outlets, including The Washington Times, seven television and radio news broadcasts, and more than 30 websites.
- A radio media tour with campaign spokeswoman Grace Anne Dorney Koppel resulting in 12 interviews reaching almost 15 million listeners on radio stations from San Francisco to New York.
- Feature stories developed in concert with our campaign partners in publications such as Lung Health, COPD Digest, AARC Times, AMA News and an upcoming story in Everything Respiratory.
- The Center for Disease Control in its MMWR featured campaign resources in the November 14 edition in observance of World COPD Day.
Partners in Motion…Virginia, Illinois, and Texas Become the Latest with States with Coalition Planning Underway
The Virginia Department of Health and Human Services hosted a COPD Summit in Richmond on November 14. Supported by numerous partners in the Virginia health and pulmonary community, the summit was billed as the first step in creating a state action plan to better prevent, diagnose, and treat COPD. The state is convening a COPD Steering Committee.
The Illinois COPD Coalition has made progress in developing a statewide COPD plan. Working groups are determining strategies and tactics for prevention, early detection, surveillance and data collection, treatment and management, public awareness, patient education and resources, policy and advocacy, research, and state plan outcomes and evaluation. The state’s overall objectives are to raise awareness and ensure that COPD is being addressed, and that patients with COPD in Illinois have access to and receive state- of-the-art, guideline-driven care. Click here to learn more.
The American Lung Association of Central States is now working with leading respiratory advocates across Texas to hold a statewide COPD summit in the second quarter of 2008. The summit will be the first step in the development of a Texas COPD action plan aimed at improved surveillance, disease awareness, patient and provider education, and advocacy. While the chapter has already convened several teleconferences with key respiratory leaders in the state, they are planning to launch and sustain a Texas COPD coalition.
Spotlight on…Scott Cerreta, American Lung Association of Arizona (ALAA)
Scott D. Cerreta, B.S., R.R.T, has cared for respiratory patients in many locations throughout his career. Serving in the U.S. Navy as a respiratory therapist and hospital corpsman, he treated patients as far away as Italy. Now, as the COPD Provider Educator for the American Lung Association of Arizona (ALAA), Cerreta is once again taking COPD outreach “on the road”, heading up a program to educate doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists in remote areas of Arizona about diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
Funded by the Arizona Department of Health Service Office of Chronic Disease Prevention and Nutrition Services, the effort is part of the ALAA’s Breathe Free program. Cerreta and his team will offer two-day courses designed to raise awareness of COPD, promote early detection of the disease through use of spirometry, and educate healthcare providers and patients about the dangers of tobacco smoke and environmental exposures. Cerreta has incorporated Learn More Breathe Better fact sheets and resource kit materials into the course. There is no fee to attend the program, which launched this month.
“Healthcare providers usually have to leave the city or even the state to attend advanced training courses,” Cerreta said. “In this program, we will do the traveling, not the busy practitioner,” he added. The outreach effort will span 16 counties where the prevalence of COPD and tobacco use is at its highest.
For more information, visit the ALAA or Breathe Easy Arizona.
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Tell us about you! Email us to let us know what your organization is doing on behalf of COPD awareness.
