Ask questions about “Living with Asthma” at UNC Charlotte’s Cone Center July 27
(Please note 7-20 deadline for reserving seat at public session.)

If you’re one of 808,000 North Carolina adults or children with asthma or are caring for a sufferer, any questions you have regarding the disease and its treatment can be answered at a “Living With Asthma” program, 7-9 p.m. Wednesday, July 27 at UNC Charlotte’s Cone Center, Room 210.

Allergy and asthma specialist Dr. Richard E. Collins III is the featured speaker. Attendees also will have the chance to discuss issues with medical professionals informally. Seating is free, but limited. Please call 828-215-1362 by Wednesday, July 20, to reserve your space.

The event is organized by the American Lung Association-North Carolina and hosted by the UNC Charlotte Department of Health Behavior and Administration in the College of Health and Human Services. The department is conducting asthma research supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. In the second year of the study, 50 families are participating in Project On TRAC (Taking Responsibility for Asthma Control) to examine ways of improving asthma control in children between 9 and 12 years old. The goal is to enroll about 300 families in the study over the course of the four-year project.

Asthma can be a life-threatening disease if not properly managed, according to the ALA. Asthma is responsible for more lost school days and hospitalizations than any other childhood chronic disease. Even more frightening is the dramatic increase in childhood deaths from asthma. Asthma rates have increased in epidemic proportions over the last two decades, rising 74 percent between 1980 and 1996. The asthma death rate among children 14 years and under is 3.7 times higher in North Carolina than the national average, according to ALA reports.

The 2005 Charlotte Asthma Walk is scheduled Oct. 15 at the McAlpine Creek Park and Greenway. More information about the walk is forthcoming.

For more information about asthma, please visit www.lungnc.org. For information about UNC Charlotte’s Project On TRAC, go to http://www.projectontrac.uncc.edu.