Asthma rates among Blacks will take your breath away

By Dr. Sheryl E. Lucas
Contributing Writer

(Special from The Root and New America Media) – In a speech to the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in 1966, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Fast-forward 50 years, and unfortunately, not much has changed. Communities of color, and particularly the African-American community, suffer disproportionately from myriad diseases, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, breast cancer, even depression.

One such disease, whose numbers climb higher and higher every year in the Black community, is asthma. Asthma has become a silent killer in our communities—often not viewed in the same vein as some of the aforementioned diseases. We have become accustomed to its prevalence and are apathetic to the risks it poses to ourselves—especially our children. But make no mistake, with death rates three times higher among African Americans than among whites, asthma is a killer.

On May 3 we commemorated World Asthma Day. For many, it serves as a day to improve asthma awareness and care around the world, but for communities of color in the United States, this day must be a call to action.

The statistics are alarming. The Environmental Protection Agency reported almost a 50 percent increase in asthma rates among Black children from 2001 to 2009—that translates to about one out of every six Black children. While it’s easy to blame this spike on high pollen counts during these spring and early-summer months, the real reason for the rise in asthma cases is the increased levels of ozone caused by climate change. The higher ozone levels exacerbate asthma attacks and other respiratory ailments that disproportionately harm African Americans, leading to increased hospitalizations and deaths.

Why are these spikes so prevalent in communities of color, you ask? We need look no further than the location of coal-fired power plants that surround and are sometimes embedded in poor and urban communities. It is estimated that 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant—a distance that can bring the most harmful effects from these toxic emissions. The high levels of ozone, nitrogen, oxides, acidic aerosol and fine particles in the air in our communities are known to trigger asthma attacks or cause children to develop asthma.

With so many studies and information on the correlation between pollution and asthma, it’s past time that communities of color took action. The staggering effects of asthma in Black communities across this country make it painfully clear that climate change is not some imaginary bogeyman; it is a real issue affecting real people. If we are serious about preserving our health, we must be serious about acting on climate change. The Clean Power Plan proposed by President Barack Obama is a positive step toward that end, leading to climate and health benefits worth an estimated $54 billion by 2030. Additionally, the plan would help prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks in children.

The issue of asthma in our communities should leave us all breathless. King was right: The injustice in our health care system is inhumane. All people deserve a clean environment and access to high-quality and affordable health care. So instead of accepting the status quo, we must take action to ensure the enactment of the Clean Power Plan so that we can have a cleaner, healthier future—free from pollutants and the deadly effects of diseases like asthma. If not, we will all soon be gasping for air.

Dr. Sheryl E. Lucas has been a practicing allergist for over 35 years. A thoughtful and passionate physician, she has been recognized as a Top Doctor by Washingtonian magazine and as a Super Doctor by the Washington Post. She is a former presidential appointee to the advisory board of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

This article originally published in the May 9, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.