Roughly 6 percent of Alabamians are asthma sufferers – a problem complicated by the state’s high poverty rate of 26 percent. The incidence of asthma tends to run higher in low-income sectors of the population.

While asthma is a chronic disease, there are things sufferers can do to mitigate the effects of the disease.

The site was developed by Laura Booth, Extension environmental education associate, in conjunction with web designer Robert Voitle, as a way to make asthma education available to larger numbers of educators, pharmacists and the general public. It is part of an educational initiative carried out in conjunction with Auburn University’s Harrison School of Pharmacy to educate asthma sufferers about the variety of treatment methods available to them.

The address for the new Extension Asthma Web site is http://www.aces.edu/asthma.

The Alabama Extension/Pharmacy Alliance is part of a nationwide Cooperative Extension effort known as "Healthy People, Healthy Communities" initiative.

While the alliance’s asthma educational efforts are currently limited only to a countywide pilot project, Booth and others involved with the initiative ultimately hope to expand their outreach efforts. They see the Web site as a vital part of this effort.

"While the pilot program is currently restricted to Tuscaloosa County, we eventually hope to expand the program throughout Alabama," Booth says. "In the meantime, we believe the Web site will help us raise awareness among larger numbers of Alabamians."

The site provides Extension educators and pharmacists with a variety of educational resources to help them raise asthma awareness among their clientele, including public service announcements, online PowerPoint presentations and a variety of links to general information about asthma awareness for educators, health professionals and the general public.

The pilot project in Tuscaloosa County has involved recruiting local pharmacists and training pharmacy interns 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 these pharmacists.

The project also has hired a local program assistant who is working with the Tuscaloosa County Extension Office to provide asthma-related education to children from low-income families.

Extension’s role in the project will be showing asthma sufferers how asthma triggers can be removed throughout the home.

Inspiration for the Alabama Extension-Pharmacy Alliance came from the University of Tennessee Extension Service, which developed a similar alliance with its local School of Pharmacy to educate Tennesseans about the importance of childhood immunizations.

The Web site is also designed to serve as a clearinghouse for asthma awareness education that is being carried out through other Extension-related programs, including the Alabama Home*a*Syst Project, the Children’s Environmental Health Project, and the Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Home grant projects.