According to the latest results of the
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS), 6.3 percent of adults in
the United States – an estimated 15 million people – have been told they have
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) by a healthcare provider and,
overall, women were more likely to report COPD than men (6.7 percent vs. 5.2
percent). The data also shows that COPD prevalence rates across the country
vary widely – from less than 4 percent of the population in Washington and
Minnesota to over 9 percent in Alabama and Kentucky.
The BRFSS is a state-based system of health surveys that collects
information on health risk behaviors, preventive health practices, and health
care access primarily related to chronic disease and injury. For many states,
the BRFSS is the only available source of timely, accurate data on
health-related behaviors. 2011 was the first year that the CDC collected data
on COPD across all 50 states via BRFSS. This state-level data on COPD comes as
the result of a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
“Results such as these help inform and
focus public health efforts at the national, state and community level and are
a big step forward in educating all of us about COPD and its effect on our
population,” said James P. Kiley, Ph.D., Director of the Division of Lung
Diseases at NHLBI.
Prevalence rates are just some of the
COPD data available on a state level. In some states, the survey provides
detail on diagnosis and quality of life trends for those living with COPD. Of
those who reported they had COPD, 62.5 percent felt that symptoms adversely
affected their quality of life; while 50.9 percent reported taking at least one
daily medication to manage their COPD.
“Above all, these findings illustrate
that we still have work to do to raise awareness about COPD, its diagnosis and
management,” said Kiley. “COPD can be well-controlled, but early diagnosis and
treatment are critical to living a longer, healthier life.”
To learn more about the results of the BRFSS
survey, read the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
As part of ongoing efforts to raise
awareness around Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Breathe Better
Network (BBN) members led the way toward
engaging their communities during National COPD Awareness Month. Throughout the
month of November, Network members from across the country held Better
Breathers Club meetings, took part in health fairs, conducted free lung health
screenings, and worked in their communities to hold rallies and conferences, to
raise awareness of COPD – the nation’s third leading cause of death. COPD Learn More
Breathe Better®, a public health education initiative
of the National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and Network members
alike urged all those at risk to take the first step to breathing better, by
learning more about COPD.
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To assist Network members in their outreach activities, COPD Learn More Breathe Better (LMBB) developed the 2012 Breathe
Better Network Toolkit which included
LMBB radio and print PSAs, tips for placement, resources for outreach to local
media and radio,
event ideas and LMBB educational materials. The toolkit
also included COPD Did You Know?, a fact
sheet which shared important facts on COPD as well as easy steps to learn more about
how to connect with the Campaign online and through social media.
One of those activities included a
#BreatheBetter2012 Twitter Chat hosted by LMBB and the NHLBI, in conjunction with the American Lung Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the COPD
Foundation. Thanks to Network participation, the first-ever
COPD themed chat reached more than 825,000 people on Twitter, allowing them to
learn more about COPD and making #BreatheBetter2012 a trending topic the day
before World COPD Day.
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From Hawaii’s
Great American Smokeout and World COPD Day Event to New Hampshire’s World COPD
Day Panel Discussion and Q&A Session; from Walk with a Doc and the Living
Well with COPD Conference in California to the Language of Lungs Community
Health Fair and the Living Better Together with COPD Conference in Illinois;
from Better Breathers Club meetings in Arizona, to COPD Awareness Days in
Nebraska and Alabama, to Hall-O-Wheeze in West Virginia, Breathe Better Network members showed up in force to bring important
information about COPD to those in their communities. If you reached out to your community or hosted an event
during National COPD Awareness Month, it’s not too late; we still want to hear from you! Send us a note. Share your
photos, videos or news articles with us, so we can share what you did to help
make National COPD Awareness Month such a great success!
Courtesy of COPD Foundation
The COPD Foundation is hosting the COPD8USA Conference June 14-15, 2013 in Chicago,
IL. It is a comprehensive, inter-professional medical education conference and
is designed to improve the assessment, diagnosis, and management of patients
with COPD to achieve optimal patient outcomes.
World-leading researchers in the field
will be present at COPD8USA to give talks on the building blocks of COPD
research, challenges in treatment, best practices for proper diagnosis and
management of the disease, and addressing comorbidities. Three breakout tracks,
research, care delivery and clinical will complement larger group plenary
sessions.
The COPD Foundation is also partnering
with the Respiratory
Health Association to host a Community Education
Workshop for individuals with COPD at the same venue.
Stay tuned for more information about
the Community Education Workshop and a soon to be announced pre-conference Summit
on Reducing COPD Hospital Readmissions, a one-day meeting on June 13th,
2013 to explore the state-of-the-art in hospital readmission reduction
strategies and to forge a collaborative path forward to advance research
efforts in the field.
Visit www.copdconferencesusa.org for information on all three meetings,
registration and abstract submission. We hope to see a strong presence from Breathe Better Network members so we can
learn, share and grow the collective voice of the COPD community.
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Elise Fodor and
Sherry Courville are registered nurses who specialize in COPD at Beaumont Health System’s
Royal Oak campus. In just two short years, they have collaborated to lead the
Royal Oak campus in making great strides in its commitment to COPD awareness
and education.
In June 2010, Elise and Sherry worked
to launch the Royal Oak campus’ Pulmonary Mobility Unit. The Unit is part of an
onsite COPD program geared toward improving outcomes for COPD patients. Elise
and Sherry know the benefits of combining the powers of physical activity and
knowledge to help those with COPD have a better quality of life. The Unit is
specifically designed to utilize exercise and education to lessen the
limitations placed on patients by their lung disease.
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The duo continues
to fuel their collective passion for working with those living with lung
disease by serving on Beaumont’s COPD Integration Team. As founding members of
the Team, Elise and Sherry tend to COPD patients on a daily basis. Each patient
they visit receives COPD and smoking cessation education and resources, advice
on getting relevant vaccination s, and a
step-by-step review of their medications and how to administer them. Elise and
Sherry even go the extra mile by calling at least twice after a patient has
been discharged to answer questions, provide additional resources, and
encourage medication adherence and physician follow-up. Their approach has
garnered notable positive feedback from patients who are now breathing easier.
Elise and Sherry are also active with
the Midwest COPD Network, convened by the Respiratory Health Association
of Metropolitan Chicago, where they first learned of the COPD Learn More Breathe Better® (LMBB) campaign.
Thanks to this driven pair, Beaumont Health Systems now has a rising voice in
the Breathe Better Network. They are also not afraid to roll up their
sleeves to help those living with COPD - such as at last summer’s Country Conquers COPD™
event at the 30th Annual Downtown Hoedown in Detroit where Elise and Sherry represented
Beaumont in partnership with LMBB to educate people on COPD during the
three-day festival.
The enthusiasm
Elise and Sherry bring to their COPD education and treatment program efforts
makes them model representatives of what it means to be members of the COPD
Learn More Breathe Better campaign’s Breathe
Better Network.
If there is an outstanding member of your team that you want to
recognize, or if your organization is working on a project that you
think should be included in the next COPD Learn More Breathe Better Update, we want to hear from you. Send us a note and let us know what you're doing to raise COPD awareness.
And, if you weren't aware, the Campaign also has a Facebook page where you can see new activity including photos and videos from Breathe Better Network activity, as well as engage in ongoing dialogue about COPD. Check it out and become a fan of the Campaign's page.
That's not all! You can follow the Campaign @BreatheBetter on Twitter and join the conversation.
