PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Asthma causes a person's airways to become inflamed and narrow, making breathing difficult. African Americans are 30% more likely to have asthma than their white counterparts. Smoking is one of the main causes of the chronic disorder.
Dr. Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors Consortium Center for Health Equity in Philadelphia, says 14.6% of African American adults are current smokers, and 15% of white American adults are smokers. But there’s a reason why African Americans are disproportionately affected by asthma: location and environment.
“Specifically, households being more congested, buildings being on top of each other in urban communities. And then also these buildings and homes close to toxic air locations, and manufacturing plants, and oil refineries, and exhaust from highways,” Stanford said.
The former regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says the health disparity in urban communities is an issue that is much broader than it appears and can be traced back to the ugly practice of redlining.
“Builders were incentivized not to invite people of color into communities that had better air quality and better living conditions. So it's not as if African Americans said, ‘You know what, I think I want to live here where the air quality is poor, where it's really loud and there are cars driving through my neighborhood, where there's an oil refinery, where there are manufacturing plants.’ Those were the only places that they were allowed to live,” Stanford said.
As for asthma sufferers, in situations like this, where the air is so unhealthy, she says to wear an N95 mask outdoors, but don’t push it. Stay home and close the windows.
“Even if you don't have air conditioning, you may have a box fan that is recirculating the air that is in your building. That’s also beneficial," she said. "Certainly not doing things like vacuuming or lighting a candle or something like that, which actually puts more particles into the air.”
She also says to keep an eye on small children for signs of asthma. According to Penn Medicine researchers, 21% of children in Philadelphia have asthma, which is more than double the national average.
“It's unlikely a 2-year-old will say, 'I'm short of breath.' If you see flaring of the nostrils, if they have belly breathing, you see the ribs sort of sucking in and their belly really pushing out like they're working harder to breathe. It may take more for them to get that air in. They may be quiet, or not talking at all.”
Asthma is a leading chronic disease in children. For more about asthma, contact the American Lung Association.
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