American Lung Association

Lung cancer, asthma, Lung disease and tobacco control: Lung disease, including copd and Lung cancer, is a leading cause of death in the u.s. and Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death. The covid-19 pandemic, in its fourth year, continues to be a priority for the country and for the American Lung Association. The Lung Association works every day across the u.s. to raise awareness for the need to prioritize Lung disease prevention and treatment, protect our air, reduce tobacco use, provide support for people living with Lung disease and their caregivers, and raise funds for research to benefit everyone's lungs. As the covid-19 pandemic evolved in this country, our response adapted as well. We leveraged our myriad communications vehicles, pr efforts and social media to help the public understand what the announced emergency's end meant to them and urged them to keep up with vaccinations. Our covid-19 action initiative, launched in the first year of the pandemic, continued because the disease was far from gone, and preventing future pandemics like covid-19 is one of its primary goals. The initiative has been an ongoing catalyst for new covid advocacy, outreach and the covid-19 and our respiratory virus research award which provides funding of $100,000 a year for two years. Our lungcast podcast series continued to provide healthcare professionals with the latest science in covid-19, and other Lung topics and including sessions on copd, Lung cancer screening, health impacts of air pollution and more. This year we also made past sessions available on our youtube channel, creating a vital and growing library for healthcare professionals.as the problem of "long covid" continued to grow, our online support community called living with long covid launched last year, expanded and kept pace. This community allows those facing long covid symptoms and their loved ones to connect with other people in their shoes for peer-to-peer support. It joins our ten other online support communities. The full list is available at www.lung.org/community. Our better breathers clubs also continued to welcome more and more people with long covid symptoms. To increase access to important health education, we unveiled important news enhancement to our website lung.org. The enhancements included adding an "accessibility" button on lung.org, which gives users a menu of options that allows them to enable several accessibility features, such as dyslexia-friendly font options, contrast adjustments, text size and spacing modifications, and the ability to pause animations. In addition to covid-19, we continued to focus on all Lung diseases, including Lung cancer. We continued our focus on reducing Lung cancer through our ongoing Lung force initiative which raises awareness, Lung cancer research funding, and provides education and support to Lung cancer patients and caregivers. In june 2022, we marked the milestone of one million Lung cancer screening eligibility quiz completions for the saved by the scan campaign. Since we launched saved by the scan in 2017 in partnership with the ad council, Lung cancer screening rates among those eligible have increased by more than 170%. In november 2022, we observed Lung cancer awareness month by releasing our annual "state of Lung cancer" report which shows the toll Lung cancer takes on each state in the country. This report revealed that states must do more to protect their residents from Lung cancer. For the third consecutive year, the "state of Lung cancer" report also explored the Lung cancer burden among racial and ethnic groups at the national and state levels. Radon exposure is the second leading risk factor for Lung cancer. During january, radon action month, and throughout the year, we encouraged everyone to test their homes for radon and seek radon mitigation if necessary. The Lung Association played a leadership role in developing and releasing the five-year national radon action plan. We also continued to offer our free radon basics online course, appropriate for anyone who wants to learn more about radon and about how to test for it and fix problems. In march, we held our eighth annual Lung force advocacy day. Lung force heroes - those personally affected by Lung cancer - came together from across the country in Washington, dc to meet with their members of congress about the urgent need to address Lung cancer. They asked congress to support $51 billion in research funding for the national institutes of health, support $11.6 billion in funding for the centers for disease control and prevention to rebuild healthier communities and protect our nation's health from disease, including Lung cancer and to support and protect medicaid.asthma makes breathing difficult for millions living in america, including 5.5 million children. In august 2022, we launched our promoting asthma friendly environments through partnerships and collaborations project which uses proven-effective strategies outlined in the cdc exhale technical package to improve asthma control in populations. This resource joined our other popular asthma tools, including the indoor air quality in schools guide, our asthma friendly schools online module, open airways for schools and much more. We also published our voice of the patient report about asthma in childhood, as part of the little airways, big voices initiative.this past year, a new infectious Lung disease rose to prominence respiratory syncytial virus or rsv. When rsv cases rose dramatically, we took action to help educate the public, creating an entire library of tools to help them understand and reduce its spread. Rsv is a leading cause of hospitalization among infants. To help expectant and new parents be prepared for this seasonal respiratory virus, we partnered with sanofi to create new web content including an "understanding rsv" animation in english and spanish, a blog highlighting a personal story, a psa, and patient and provider videos. We launched a custom rsv landing page at lung.org/rsv. In february 2023, we were proud to launch the American Lung Association patient & caregiver network to provide support, education and access to research for the 34 million people nationwide living with Lung disease. The patient & caregiver network is an online support program providing direct access to Lung disease management tools, education, and connection to other patients and caregivers. We also created a series of new learning modules, including copd basics course and infectious respiratory disease basics course.tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke causes more than 480,000 deaths every year in the u.s. and tragically, each day thousands of kids still pick up a tobacco product for the first time. Creating a tobacco-free future for america is a core part of our mission. We are funding a robust number of research projects to help us better understand tobacco use, nicotine addiction and how to reduce it. As the new year rolled around, we used our extensive media network to encourage smokers to "go tobacco free in 23." Through our "tobacco-free '23" campaign, we worked to increase awareness of the many resources, programs and services we offer in creating a tobacco-free future in the new year, including our Lung helpline and tobacco quitline (1-800-lungusa), freedom from smoking program and support groups.in an effort to further address tobacco use in diverse communities, we released two new community toolkits. The American Lung Association's addressing commercial tobacco use in indigenous communities toolkit examines issues related to commercial tobacco use and nicotine dependence in indigenous communities and provides culturally competent strategies, tools and lessons learned that can be implemented by public health professionals serving diverse indigenous communities. We also released the addressing tobacco use in hispanic or latino communities toolkit with numerous community tools and resources in english and spanish.as part of our education and awareness efforts on youth vaping, we promoted our "dothevapetalk" campaign, produced in collaboration with the ad council. In just two years, our youth vaping public awareness campaign has helped thousands of parents across the country talk with their children about the dangers of vaping. Over 3.4m people have visited our "get the facts" page. We launched new public service announcements and even received digital media support from new york times by featuring it in their podcasts this year. Our 21st annual "state of tobacco control" report, launched in january, revealing the states with the best and worst policies to prevent and reduce tobacco use and finds dramatic differences in the strength of states' tobacco control laws. The report serves as a blueprint for what state and federal leaders need to do to eliminate the death and disease caused by tobacco use.

Advocacy and environmental:every year, the American Lung Association supports policies and legislation that can lead to better Lung health across the nation. These include laws that protect our children from deadly air pollution and tobacco products, support funding for critical Lung disease research and health programs at the federal level, provide affordable, quality healthcare for more people, and much more. This year we funded multiple research projects that will build our understanding of the many ways air pollution impacts our lungs. We also advocated for stronger policies to clean up air pollution and curb climate change. We worked to educate the public, media and our nation's leaders about the harmful effect dirty air has on health and what we need to do to clean it up. Without question, our changing climate is harming health now. Drought, wildfires, heat, flooding, increased air pollution are just a few of the challenges we encounter from climate change. A real-life example was the wildfires in canada, which blanketed much of the u.s. In life-threatening particle pollution during the summer of 2023. We worked hard to help the public understand the risk and stay safe by supplying the media with expert information and providing essential tips and information at lung.org/wildfires.this past year, we saw the positive effects of our clean air advocacy, such as when California voted to require 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. In october 2022, epa announced nearly $1 billion in awards for school districts to purchase clean school buses. We ran a vigorous advocacy campaign in support of congress passing investments in electric school buses. This is a major step forward for health, both for kids who ride buses and school communities and neighborhoods who are exposed to dangerous emissions from diesel buses. It's also a victory for health equity, with 99% of the funds going to districts serving low-income, rural or tribal students.the past year saw many significant developments in terms of our tobacco advocacy, such as when fda closed the "puff bar loophole" which gave a pass to products containing artificial nicotine. And when a court order was issued that required tobacco companies to post signs about health risks of smoking at 200,000 stores across u.s.we continued our focus on reducing tailpipe pollution, which drives air pollution and climate change with a series of reports. In october 22, we released "delivering clean air: health benefits of zero-emission trucks and electricity" showing a move to zero-emission trucks could save more than 66,000 lives, result in $735 billion in public health benefits over the next 30 years and help create a more equitable future. In june of 2023 our report "driving to clean air: health benefits of zero-emission cars and electricity," further showed that a widespread transition to zero-emission passenger vehicles and electricity would dramatically improve health and save lives. In september 2022, we released a new report "health impacts of combustion in homes," explored the health and environmental impacts of indoor combustion and the literature on the number and type of appliances in u.s. homes, their emissions, and impacts on health and the indoor and outdoor environment. Two thirds of u.s. Households burn fuel in their homes, which produces emissions that are harmful to human health and the environment. In april, we released our annual "state of the air" report, which revealed growing disparities in exposure to air pollution. This 24th annual report also finds that 1 in 3 people living in the u.s. are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution. The report finds that people of color are significantly more likely to breathe polluted air than white people. As the nation works to address climate change and continue reducing air pollution, we must prioritize the health of disproportionately burdened communities. Quality and affordable healthcare access is crucial to all americans, especially Lung disease patients, and our advocacy team worked to protect access to healthcare. We celebrated an important victory, with the passage of the inflation reduction act which has provisions to protect healthcare for millions. When healthcare enrollment opened at healthcare.gov, we rolled out a series of updated tools to help people understand their choices and the enrollment process.

Research: few things promise to improve patients' lives more than medical research. For nearly 120 years, the American Lung Association has focused on driving excellence and innovation through research. This year we launched the American Lung Association research institute which will fund high-impact, lifesaving research and bring together the best scientific minds to address critical Lung health challenges. The research institute will increase our annual Lung disease research investment to $25 million by 2030, expand partnerships with government and collaboration with industry and empower promising scientists to accelerate discovery and innovation. We also continued to support promising research in all areas of Lung disease, with the hope of eliminating Lung disease and improving the lives of those living with Lung disease. Our research program includes our awards and grants program and our expanded airways clinical research centers network (acrc), the largest not-for-profit clinical research network dedicated to asthma and copd in the country. This network conducts large patient-focused clinical trials led by some of the best investigators nationwide to improve Lung health. This year, we published numerous results from acrc related investigations. One of these, by mario castro, m.d. Found the drug dupilumab helped to reduce exacerbations and increase Lung function in patients with asthma, regardless of allergic asthma status. This is important because it provides new guidelines for asthma therapy in patients to reduce their symptoms and improve their quality of life. The landmark American Lung Association Lung health cohort study expanded enrollment of participants. This is the first-ever large-scale Lung health study that will track the Lung health of 4,000 young adults starting at an age of peak Lung health. In october 2022, we were proud to announce we were investing an additional $13.1 million to accelerate Lung health research for 2022-2023. Our annual advancing research publication illustrated our ongoing research initiatives, from patient stories to scientific articles, and researcher profiles and created a new way to keep up with our cutting-edge research program with our research news website - httpswwwlungorgresearchaboutourre... Diversity and inclusion continue to be a key need in the world of research, including the need to improve access to clinical trials. The black community is disproportionally impacted by Lung cancer and underrepresented in Lung cancer clinical trials. We continued our program awareness, trust, and action - the importance of Lung cancer clinical trials to reduce mistrust and under representation in clinical trials, especially in the black community. We also placed a focus on research grants that focus on equity like funding to support the harold amos scholar program.