Auburn, Feb. 6---In partnership with Auburn University’s Harrison School of Pharmacy, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System is developing an educational program to address one of Alabama’s most serious health problems: asthma.

Alabama currently ranks sixth in the nation in the number of asthma sufferers – a problem complicated by its 26 percent poverty rate, which is believed to contribute to the condition.

Above: Jeff Hand (second from right), Alabama Power Company manager, presents Alabama Cooperative Extension System Interim Director Dr. Gaines Smith, with a check for $20,000 to support the Extension-Pharmacy Alliance's efforts to support asthma education efforts in Alabama.  Also pictured are Dr. Paul Jungnickel, associate dean of the Harrison School of Pharmacy, and Dr. Martha Johnson, Extension state program leader and national co-chairperson of the Extension-Pharmacy Alliance.

While asthma is an incurable disease, people can do a wide variety of things to mitigate its effects. The purpose of the new Extension-Pharmacy Alliance is to develop an education program to highlight what people can do to live with this disease.

"Asthma causes more lost school days and more childhood hospitalizations than an other chronic disease," says Barbara Mobley, the Extension program specialist who is helping coordinate the program. "Our goal is to teach people that, in spite of all the bad things associated with this disease, there is much that can be done about it."

As a first step, Mobley and other program organizers have developed a pilot project in Tuscaloosa County that will provide asthma-awareness training to asthma patients.

A major focus of this project will be recruiting local pharmacists to provide on-site asthma education to their clients, such as how to take asthma medication and use asthma-related equipment safely and efficiently.

Local personnel affiliated with the Area Health Education Center and the Harrison School of Pharmacy will provide training for the pharmacists.

The project is also hiring a local program assistant who will be working with the local Tuscaloosa County Extension Office to provide asthma-related education.

Another major focus of the program will be showing asthma sufferers and their families how asthma triggers can be removed throughout the home.

The program is part of the Cooperative Extension Service’s nationwide "Healthy People, Healthy Communities" initiative.

The Alabama Extension-Pharmacy Alliance was inspired by a model developed by the University of Tennessee Extension Service, which worked with its local School of Pharmacy to educate Tennesseans about the importance of childhood immunizations, says Mary Remenschneider, a health associate who is also involved in the program.

Recently, Alabama Power Company donated $20,000 to support the program’s efforts throughout the state.