For Immediate Release
Monday, April 30, 2012
NIH statement on World Asthma Day 2012 - May 1, 2012
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
Susan B. Shurin, M.D., Acting Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute,
Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,
Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D., Director, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
On World Asthma Day 2012, we at the National Institutes of Health
stand with the Global Initiative for Asthma to renew our dedication to
improving the quality of life for the millions of people living with
asthma.
Asthma affects more than 230 million people worldwide, including more
than 25 million people in the United States. There is no way to
prevent, or to cure, asthma. Existing treatments focus on preventing or
controlling disease symptoms, such as wheezing, chest tightness,
shortness of breath and coughing. Despite these efforts, each year more
than half of children and one-third of adults with asthma in the United
States miss school or work because of the disease, approximately 17
million people require medical attention because of an asthma episode,
and more than 3,000 asthma-related deaths occur.
Four NIH institutes — the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID); the National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute (NHLBI); the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences (NIEHS); and the
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) — support basic
and clinical research to understand the causes of asthma and the factors
that contribute to its progression. Although each institute has a
different focus, we all work together to help develop effective
prevention and treatment strategies for the disease.
In March 2012, NIH, together with the Merck Childhood Asthma Network
Inc., and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, published a report that for the
first time promotes standardization across asthma clinical studies.
Asthma Outcomes in Clinical Research: Report of the Asthma Outcomes
Workshop establishes common measures and data-collection methods to
enable researchers to compare their results more efficiently. This
standardization promises to enhance asthma clinical research and lead to
improvements in the quality of asthma care.
In August 2011, NIH held a workshop, The Early Life Origins of
Asthma: Strategies for Primary Prevention. Asthma typically begins early
in childhood, and the goal of the workshop was to identify specific
factors that may predict a person’s risk of developing asthma during the
first 1,000 days of life. Such factors include environmental exposures,
genetics and events that occur in pregnancy and early infancy. Workshop
attendees concluded that understanding the early risk factors for
asthma may provide an opportunity to prevent asthma before it begins.
NIH remains committed to working with individuals, families and
health care professionals to reduce the worldwide burden of asthma. We
commend our investigators who continue to make significant progress in
asthma research, and we thank the people who have participated in
NIH-sponsored asthma clinical studies, as well as to the nongovernmental
organizations that provide support for those affected by this disease.
We all share the hope that further research will uncover the causes of
asthma so that the disease can one day be effectively prevented.
NIAID supports studies of the immune system's role in the development
of asthma and evaluates new approaches to treat and prevent the
disease. NHLBI funds a broad asthma research portfolio — including
studies on risk factors, mechanisms that influence disease severity, and
identifying novel therapies — and the National Asthma Education and
Prevention Program, which translates research into clinical practice to
improve asthma control and quality of life. NIEHS supports research to
understand how exposures to environmental agents trigger asthma, and how
we can better prevent, diagnose and treat such exposures. NICHD
conducts and supports research on all stages of human development,
including research directed to those early life stages when chronic
diseases such as asthma might be prevented.
NIAID conducts and supports research — at NIH, throughout the United
States, and worldwide — to study the causes of infectious and
immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing,
diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and
other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at
http://www.niaid.nih.gov.
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Heart, Lung,
and Blood Institute (NHLBI) plans, conducts, and supports research
related to the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart,
blood vessel, lung, and blood diseases; and sleep disorders. The
Institute also administers national health education campaigns on women
and heart disease, healthy weight for children, and other topics. NHLBI
press releases and other materials are available online at
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the
environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on
environmental health topics, visit
http://www.niehs.nih.gov. Subscribe to one or more of the NIEHS news lists (
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/releases/newslist/index.cfm) to stay current on NIEHS news, press releases, grant opportunities, training, events, and publications.
About the
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development (NICHD): The NICHD sponsors research on
development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health;
reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation.
For more information, visit the Institute’s Web site at
http://www.nichd.nih.gov.
NICHD support was provided through the Best Pharmaceuticals for
Children Act program, which seeks to improve pediatric therapeutics
through preclinical and clinical drug trials that lead to drug labeling
changes.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers
and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH
is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and
translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments,
and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH
and its programs, visit
www.nih.gov.
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