More than 25 million Americans have asthma. And the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Asthma Control Program (NACP) is a program aimed to help them. The program aims to reduce the number of asthma-related:¹

• Deaths
• Hospital stays
• Emergency department visits
• Missed school days
• Missed workdays
• Limits on activity
  
  

The NACP works by awarding cooperative agreements to U.S. states, territories, and local communities. This means the government gives funding to state and local health departments to help improve asthma surveillance (data collection), train health professionals, and educate people with asthma.

By working with state health departments on community-based care models, the NACP has been able to reduce the number of deaths, hospital stays, and emergency department visits. In fact, since it started in 1999, asthma-related deaths have gone down by 41% even though the number of people with asthma has gone up since that time.

But the NACP does not get enough funding from Congress to help all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. The NACP currently only funds 23 states, Puerto Rico, and Houston, Texas.²

During the last funding cycle in fiscal year 2021 (FY21), Congress did not increase funding for the NACP. This left the program flat-funded at $30 million. Flat-funding means the program received the same funding from Congress as the previous fiscal year.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are currently working on the Omnibus Appropriations Act for FY22. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) is urging Congress to include $34 million for the NACP. This is the amount the House of Representatives approved last year for FY22.

This amount won’t give NACP national reach, but it is a start. The extra $4 million will allow the NACP to fund an extra two or three states and improve asthma surveillance. The CDC currently does not have complete surveillance data for asthma nationwide. This makes it very hard to compare statistics across states, cities, and territories.

AAFA is asking Congress to increase funding for the NACP. Please add your voice to this important request. Contact your representatives and senators to ask for funding for the NACP. Use our simple tool below.

References
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, September 4). National asthma control program. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/nacp.htm2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, December 14). Asthma - state contacts and programs. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/contacts/default.htm