The National Latino Research Center (NLRC) at Cal State San Marcos recently received a renewed three-year $420,000 grant from The California Endowment for Community Action to Fight Asthma (CAFA).
Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease, affecting 4.8 million children nationwide and accounting for one-third of all pediatric emergency visits. It is widely recognized that environmental factors play a major role in asthma morbidity. In California, one in ten children suffers from asthma, affecting nearly 1.2 million children in the state and costing $480 million a year in hospital stays alone.
Initially funded in 2002, CAFA is a network of asthma coalitions in California working to shape local, regional and state policies to reduce the indoor and outdoor environmental triggers of asthma for school-aged children where they live, learn, and play through policy change at the local, regional, and state level. For additional information about the network, visit: http://www.calasthma.org.
The Regional Asthma Management and Prevention Initiative leads the coordination of the CAFA network in collaboration with the NLRC. The NLRC will provide peer-to-peer technical assistance, regional training, policy development and advocacy programs strategies, communications and resource development and networking opportunities to CAFA grantees in Los Angeles, San Diego, Imperial, and Kern Counties as well as emerging non-CAFA asthma coalitions in San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange Counties.
Through the voices and actions of twelve community-based local asthma coalitions from across California that bring together diverse constituents—public health, managed care, hospitals and clinics, providers, schools, environmental health and justice organizations, housing rights groups, community advocates, and parents of children with asthma— the goal is to collectively reduce the burden of asthma.
Recognizing that environmental factors play a major role in asthma attacks, CAFA grantees combine advocacy, outreach, education, and grassroots interventions across the state to 1) improve and maintain school indoor air and environmental quality, including reducing the impact of school buses idling while dropping off and picking up children; 2) reduce emissions from various sources of diesel exhaust, focusing on the particles and chemicals (toxic air contaminants) emitted by municipal vehicles, trucks, buses, trains, ships, and agricultural and construction equipment; and 3) improve housing and environmental conditions dealing with mold, cockroach infestation, chipped and peeling paint, and lead in homes.
The NLRC is an applied research center specializing in research, training, technical assistance and research-based services that contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the rapidly growing U.S. Latino population. For more information regarding the project please contact Dr. Arcela Nuñez-Alvarez (760) 750-3503 or at anunez@csusm.edu.
The California Endowment was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. The California Endowment makes grants to organizations and institutions that directly benefit the health and well being of the people of California. For more information, visit The California Endowment’s Web site at www.calendow.org.
(end)
