Year of the Lung: The Time to Make a Difference

The goal of proclaiming this year, 2010, as the Year of the Lung, is to spread awareness and education about lung health worldwide. Throughout the year, there will be events coordinated by both patient organizations and professional societies. These events are aimed at encouraging and inspiring all members of the community to learn more about COPD and help spread awareness.
“The Year of the Lung will give the COPD community a tremendous opportunity to increase the level of awareness and understanding about the impact of COPD in the U.S. as well as the world,” John W. Walsh, president of the COPD Foundation, says.
Led by the American Thoracic Society and the Forum of International Respiratory Societies, the campaign is giving organizations worldwide the opportunity to engage in awareness and advocacy activities under the same umbrella, creating a unified effort in the battle against COPD.
“The COPD Foundation is pleased to participate as a partner in the Year of the Lung campaign and present our Faces of COPD program highlighting the impact COPD risk factors have on women’s health due to environmental exposures, such as biomass fuels found widespread in developing countries,
occupational dust and chemicals, as well as smoking,” Walsh says.
Dr. Dean E. Schraufnagel, chair of Year of the Lung as well as president-elect of the American Thoracic Society, says the year-long activities include 300 to 400 organizations and span the globe.
“Most of them are based on awareness, but it’s more than just awareness, it’s [the goal of] accomplishing something,” he says. Schraufnagel, who is also a professor of medicine and pathology and program director in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep and Allergy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says the campaign is a time for selfreflection, and for people to re-evaluate their lifestyles if in fact they are smokers.
“I think people can use it as a personal lung health [campaign],” he says. “They should say, ‘I think this year is time for me to stop smoking.’”
Schraufnagel also says Year of the Lung is designed to be a grassroots campaign.
“It was set up as a forum to allow people to acquire ideas from other people. We hope that people do things that they thought in their community was appropriate,” he says.
He also says that one big part of this campaign is spirometry testing, to identify people who might have COPD and not know it.
“I think the idea is not so much that we would test people’s lungs and give them a bill of health,” Schraufnagel says. The goal is to spread awareness to those who may have developed lung disease.
“The sooner they know that, the sooner they can get help and get better.”
The COPD Foundation will be highlighting a topic every month of this year through its e-newsletter, website, and Facebook/Twitter pages. These themes will help educate about the issues concerning COPD, including public policy and advocacy efforts.
For more information about the COPD Foundation’s Year of the Lung campaign, visit our website at www.copdfoundation.org. For more information about the international Year of the Lung campaign, visit www.yearofthelung.com.