On August 26, 2021, the Indiana Joint Asthma Coalition (InJAC) presented the 2021 Asthma Summit-Controlling Asthma from your Doctor’s Office to your Home, a virtual summit with concurrent breakout sessions for both clinicians and the public to learn about how to optimize asthma control, clinically and in a larger societal context-environmental, financial and mental health; how to increase health literacy around asthma treatment and control among both youth and adults; address ongoing issues related to COVID-19, asthma, vaccines and special considerations and provide easily accessible and relevant asthma resources on all presentations; including Asthma Peak Week in September.
A total of 86 participants learned about the state of asthma in Indiana with updates on clinical guidelines, and practical information related to environmental quality and living with asthma. Dr. Lindsey Weaver, MD, FACEP, opened the summit with a discussion on asthma control, the importance of increasing health literacy around asthma treatment and control and addressed ongoing issues related to COVID-19, asthma, vaccines and special considerations. Dr. Nadia Krupp, MD, spoke about asthma in Indiana and discussed recent advances and ongoing challenges in asthma care, the intersection of medical and non-medical factors and future steps.
“According to Dr. Krupp 9-10% of adults in Indiana have asthma with rates that are slightly above the national average.” Direct impacts of asthma include hospitalization and emergency department visit rates. Indirect impacts include lost productivity and missed school days for youth.
Dr. Krupp, Pediatric Pulmonologist and Associate Professor at IU School of Medicine, closed out the summit by highlighting the many opportunities in asthma care including personalized and tailored options for those with difficult to treat asthma, resources for environmental remediation and a discussion of insurance and financial costs associated with treating asthma. Dr. Krupp highlighted the ultimate goals as finding a cure for asthma and preventing asthma with a need to shift from delivery of sick care to a focus on wellness and prevention.
The summit featured three break-out sessions with options for both clinical and public tracks. Topics covered included; Air Quality and Asthma-Living Conditions, 2021 Updates in NHBLI and GINA Guidelines, Non-Medical Factors that Affect Asthma, COVID-19 and Asthma, Air Quality/Asthma and COVID-19 and Personalized Therapies Being Developed for Severe Asthma.
Data from a post-webinar survey indicated that 78% of respondents plan to share and or use the information they received at the summit within the next 0-3 months. 100% of respondents learned new information during the Summit. Comments included “It was great-I jumped from break out to break out. All of them were engaging and interesting”, “learned more about asthma and its impact on minority Hoosiers” and “loved the split track for providers or public sector, really helpful, hope it grows!”
The Indiana Joint Asthma Coalition provided resources to all conference attendees at no charge. To view the Digital Resource Guide visit this link. If you are interested in obtaining hardcopies of the materials, please email cinh@iu.edu.
Overall, the 2021 Asthma Summit was a success for InJAC and Connections IN Health! You can find presentations and presenter bios here and a recording of the webinar here.
