AIR Louisville

Louisville drops one spot on the 2015 Spring Allergy Capitals List

4/24/2015

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America just released their 2015 Spring Allergy Capitals report. Louisville has dropped one spot in the overall list. Last spring, Louisville was in the #1 spot with a score of 100.00 This year Jackson, MS, took that honor:

Jackson, MS
Louisville, KY
Oklahoma City, OK
Memphis, TN
Knoxville, TN

Jackson won the top spot this spring because of higher than average pollen counts and higher than average medication usage. Louisville is usually in the top 10 on both the fall and spring allergy lists. You can see the full list here.

The Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America is a partner in the AIR Louisville project, contributing strategic advice and helping to promote the program among its Louisville members.

In addition to the spring and fall allergy reports, AAFA also issues an annual Asthma Capitals report. Mike Tringale, MSM, is the Senior Vice President of External Affairs at AAFA. In a conversation about the asthma capitals report, he explained how the city scores are calculated. AAFA researchers gather data in three categories:

Asthma prevalence factors – data from hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and self-reported data from individuals with asthma
Asthma risk factors – pollen, air quality, smoking laws, poverty rate, the size of the uninsured population and school inhaler access laws
Medical factors – the number of doctors in a city who specialize in respiratory issues, such as allergists and pulmonologists

Each category and the individual factors within each category carry different numerical weights in the calculation of each city’s score. For example, pollen has the highest weight among the risk factors because it’s such a large trigger of asthma.

“Asthma is an inherited disease of your lungs, you’re born with a sensitive airway,” Tringale said. “If you’ve got allergies on top of that, it’s a one-two punch.”

One of the goals of AIR Louisville is to get Louisville off of AAFA’s Asthma Capitals top 10 list, making Louisville a healthier and safer place to live for people with asthma and other respiratory disease.

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Propeller Health to Build First Ever National Asthma Risk Map for U.S.

4/17/2015

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Today we are pleased to announce we will build the first-ever national Asthma Risk Map for the United States, where citizens can track how climate change affects the frequency and severity of asthma attacks and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). To accomplish this, Propeller plans to expand its current municipal public health asthma initiatives to five cities around the US in the next two years as part of President Obama’s Climate Data Initiative.

Propeller will collect in near real-time inhaler usage across the US. By pinpointing the time and location of rescue inhaler usage, Propeller will be able notify the community and nation of potential asthma risk hot spots, or The Asthma Risk map. This map is the first piece of the puzzle in helping us provide in-depth models on the impact climate change will have on public health. In addition to this, our big data analytics will collect an additional 40 data points, such as weather conditions, wind direction, air pollution, pollen counts, land use and traffic patterns at the time and location an inhaler is used.

The first of such cross-sectoral programs, AIR Louisville – a partnership with the Institute for Healthy Air Water and Soil, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – is already using Propeller’s FDA-cleared sensors to collect these necessary data. As we expand to more cities the additional data will help build richer model sets.

Using predictive spatial modeling techniques, and open government data resources from ClimateData.gov, the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration global climate models, Propeller will identify areas in US cities where the impacts of climate change will be felt most acutely by people with chronic respiratory disease over the next 10 to 100 years and beyond.

These models will consider modifiable predictors such as air pollution and transportation in addition to climate conditions to help local municipalities plan collaboratively for the impacts of climate change on health and to identify the most promising interventions that could be implemented now to reduce this burden. This initiative will also raise public awareness and help to build resilient communities that can withstand the impacts of climate change now and into the future.

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AIR Louisville launches with royal fanfare

4/1/2015

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Prince Charles checks out an asthma inhaler equipped with a sensor from Propeller Health. The Duchess of Wales speaks with Christy Brown and Erika O’Donohoe at Harmony Village.

by: Veronica Combs, Director of Community Engagement, AIR Louisville

AIR Louisville officially launched March 20 with strong partners, many conversations about environmental health, and even a brush with royalty.

Louisville was graced with a visit from Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, who came to celebrate the innovative programs that are growing to support Louisville’s environment, health systems, and food networks. Prince Charles is passionate about the environment, and has been writing and speaking for decades about the connection between the environment and human health (see Prince Charles’ book Harmony.)

AIR Louisville joined the festivities at the African American Heritage Center, where we hosted an exhibit to talk to the attendees about the program. The Prince and Duchess stopped by and spoke to the whole crew, asking thoughtful questions and checking out Propeller Health’s sensors up close.

David Van Sickle meets His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales, who is accompanied by Louisville Mayor, Greg Fischer, and Kentucky Governor, Steve Beshear.

David Van Sickle, CEO and co-founder of Propeller Health, spoke from the main stage in the morning as part of a series of Ignite talks given by local food advocates, land use experts, and health specialists. Meredith Barrett, VP of Science and Research, participated in the afternoon roundtable on health and the environment, a special gathering of healthcare leaders, doctors, and advocates who discussed the connections between health and the environment.

The Prince of Wales joined the roundtable and added his interesting perspective, which aligned well with the group. In his speech later that afternoon, Prince Charles proposed, "You can see that the health of people directly affects the health of an economy. So perhaps, at the end of the day, it might be cheaper to join up the dots and [reduce] pollution, rather than pursue the more expensive option of encouraging people to take yet more pills."

Prince Charles urges leaders to use research to clarify the connection between our air and our health.

Meaghan Watson, Erika O’Donohoe, Meredith Barrett and Melissa Williams await the arrival of royalty at the AIR Louisville booth at Harmony Village.

Prince Charles urged the audience to use the research to understand how pollution impacts the health and economies of our cities. AIR Louisville could not agree more.

We will use the data collected from Propeller's sensors to look at the connection between asthma, air quality and other environmental drivers. This work will help individuals, city leaders and company executives start to understand the connection between air quality and the burden of asthma. This analysis will also help to start calculating the healthcare costs associated with asthma and air quality.

AIR Louisville is a new way of thinking about health - how to measure it and what it means to an entire community. As AIR Louisville moves forward, we look forward to sharing our analysis and conclusions - and recommendations for change - with all our local partners and any royal fans we win along the way.

For more coverage of the launch, read on with a few examples:

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Louisville drops one spot on the 2015 Spring Allergy Capitals List

Propeller Health to Build First Ever National Asthma Risk Map for U.S.

AIR Louisville launches with royal fanfare

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