American Lung Association Story Archives - Page 2 of 3

Tobacco Cessation Bills Fail In 2023 Legislative Session

During the 2023 West Virginia Legislative session, lawmakers considered two bills to lower the state’s smoking rates. Both bills were sent to Health and Human Resources Committees and neither moved any further.

Those bills were Senate Bill 84 and House Bill 2051.

Doug Hogan, the government relations director of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), worked directly with Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, in writing Senate Bill 84.

“He’s carried that a couple of times for us,” Hogan said. “And obviously, you know, at this point, we would just like to get a hearing. Eighty-four is one that we really spent a lot of time on and we’re invested in.”

Tobacco companies spend $107.9 million per year to market their products in West Virginia, while the state allots just $445,000 to tobacco prevention and cessation programs in the operating budget.

“West Virginia has both the highest adult smoking rate and the highest high school tobacco use rate in the country,” Hogan said. “Those are two huge indicators that we’re not doing enough to provide fact-based tobacco control measures and education and programming within the state to try and break that cycle of generational tobacco usage. And so we were hoping that the legislature would increase the funding for those tobacco prevention programs here in the state, the governor’s task force recommended $16.5 million.”

According to the American Lung Association’s 2023 “State of Tobacco Report,” West Virginia lags behind when it comes to tobacco control policies. As a result, the state’s average smoking rates are 22 percent of adults and 40.6 percent of high school students.

“We’re trying to break that trend to break that generational tobacco usage,” Hogan said. “And that’s really why we were hopeful that we would see a significant increase in the amount of funding for the tobacco prevention programs in West Virginia. I mean, the evidence is clear.”

West Virginia continues to rank 50th in the nation when it comes to tobacco control and cessation programs.

Health Legislation, Wills And Estate Planning On This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, the state recently received some bad health grades from the American Lung Association. Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice sat down with Del. Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, who is also a doctor, to get his thoughts on the state of health in West Virginia and what the legislature can do to help.

On this West Virginia Morning, the state recently received some bad health grades from the American Lung Association. Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice sat down with Del. Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, who is also a doctor, to get his thoughts on the state of health in West Virginia and what the legislature can do to help.

Also, in this show, in last week’s installment of the radio series “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents,” News Director Eric Douglas spoke with a funeral director on planning ahead. This week, he speaks with Charleston Attorney Franki Parsons about wills and estate planning and the problems that arise if you don’t have them when you die.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Lung Association Encourages More Screenings

The American Lung Association is encouraging West Virginians to get screened for lung cancer.

In West Virginia, about 2,050 people are expected to be diagnosed with lung cancer this year and more than half, 1,190, will die from the disease. It’s the leading cause of cancer death in the country. The association says the key to survival is early detection.

The Preventive Services Task Force recently expanded guidelines of who should be screened. Now, anyone aged 50 to 80 who has a 20 pack-year smoking history and currently smokes or has quit within the past 15 years should be screened.

The screening involves a CT scan or special X-ray that takes multiple images. Those images are then put together on a computer. Contact your healthcare provider to get started.

Breathing Program Designed For Rural Healthcare Providers

Nearly 175,000 West Virginians have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — also known as COPD. But experts believe many more may have the disease without knowing it.

COPD, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is the third leading cause of disease-related death in the U.S.

The American Lung Association in West Virginia has unveiled the new Reaching Rural Providers initiative, which is designed to increase early diagnosis of COPD in rural communities by educating healthcare professionals about the disease.

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Virginia is one of seven states with the highest estimates for COPD diagnosis, hospitalizations and death, and our rural communities are harder hit,” said Deborah Brown, chief mission officer for the lung association. “In rural areas, COPD rates are twice as high as the overall population. The good news is that COPD is treatable when diagnosed early. Many people don’t recognize the symptoms of COPD until later stages of the disease, so it is critical for our rural healthcare providers to be educated on the latest symptoms, as well as the newest treatments and medications for the disease.”

The Lung Association’s new Reaching Rural Providers initiative works to increase early diagnosis of COPD in rural communities across the nation.

Resources are available nationwide, but additional focus will be on rural communities in six states with the highest estimates for COPD diagnosis, hospitalizations and death, which include Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Providers can access and download the free resources at Lung.org/COPD-rural.

Charleston Leaders, Public Health Advocates Raise Impacts Of Clean Car Rule Rollback On W.Va.

Leaders in West Virginia’s capital city are drawing attention to the local health and economic effects of the Trump administration’s rollback of federal fuel-efficiency rules.

In late March, in the midst of the first surge of coronavirus cases in the U.S., the federal Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finalized a two-part rollback of the Obama-era clean car standards. Known as the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule, it requires automakers to increase the fuel economy of passenger cars by 1.5 percent each year.

The previous standards set by President Obama in 2012 mandated a 5 percent annual increase in fuel economy.

“The [sic] standards provide numerous benefits to Charleston families, including reducing air pollution in our city and saving families money at the pump,” said Charleston City Council member Chuck Overstreet. “The last thing that we need to be doing during this public health and economic crisis is gutting standards that protect our health and put more money back into the pockets of the folks across our community.”

Speakers at Thursday’s virtual press conference noted the high rates of asthma and other respiratory diseases among West Virginians. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2018, West Virginia was tied with Maine for having the highest percent of residents with the chronic disease, at 12.3 percent.

Cabell, Kanawha, Ohio and Wood counties had four or more days with unhealthy ozone levels, according to the American Lung Association’s 2019 annual report. Ozone is a powerful lung irritant that can exacerbate asthma attacks and make it hard for people with lung diseases, like COPD, to breathe. The Lung Association gave those counties a “c” letter grade.

Del. Mike Pushkin, a Democrat who represents Kanawha County, also noted the clean car rule rollback hurts West Virginians’ pocketbooks, at a time when thousands of residents are out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The one who gets hurt the most … it’s the consumer at the pump,” he said. “Our working families there will have to pay more to gas up their cars.”

Under the 2012 rule, automakers were to produce vehicles that would average about 47 miles per gallon by 2025. Cars under the new proposal will average 37 miles per gallon. Greenhouse gas emissions are also expected to rise by nearly a billion tons.

EPA officials said the new rule “strikes the right regulatory balance for the environment, the auto industry, the economy, safety and American families.”

The speakers, which also included Charleston City Councilmember Robert Sheets and Robin Blakeman with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and West Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, encouraged concerned residents to reach out to members of West Virginia’s congressional delegation.

The rule is being challenged in court by more than 20 states and environmental groups.

Air Pollution Improves Across West Virginia, Smog Worsens

Air quality across West Virginia is improving, with levels of fine particle air pollution some of the best ever measured, but smog levels have increased, according to the American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report released today.

The 2018 report finds that West Virginia metro areas, such as Charleston, Morgantown, Fairmont, Parkersburg and Huntington, beat the national standard when it came to levels of fine particle, or soot, pollution.

Fine particle pollution includes tiny bits of dust released by coal-fired power plants, diesel-burning vehicles, wildfires and wood-burning stoves. This type of pollution can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes if the small particles get lodged in the lungs.

It was a different story for ozone pollution. Ozone is a powerful lung irritant that can exacerbate asthma attacks and make it hard for people with lung diseases, like COPD, to breathe.

The report found only Greenbrier County held on to its “A” grade. Several areas saw an increase in unhealthy days for ozone including in Wheeling, Charleston and Huntington.

Kevin Stewart, director of environmental health for the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic, said those trends were consistent across the nation.

“We’ve been hoping over time, we’d be able to continue this trend into very good grades,” he said. “And in fact, in last year’s report it was something that was very remarkable in terms of the number of counties that showed very good grades. It’s a little disappointing this year around to find that we’re doing a little bit of backtracking.”

The report said a warming climate may help explain the boost in unhealthy ozone pollution levels; 2016 was the second-hottest year on record, and high air temperatures accelerate ozone production.

“We know that ozone is not something that is produced directly out of smokestacks and tailpipes, but rather the precursors to ozone air pollution are emitted and then cook in the atmosphere especially in hot, sunny, still summer days,” Stewart said. “Those circumstances are exacerbated when air temperatures are higher than normal and there’s a lot of sunlight.”

The report analyzed air quality data collected by federal, state and local air monitoring devices between 2014 and 2016, the most recent data available. Data was collected in 10 West Virginia counties.