Several HHS agencies support public health programs designed to meet the needs of people living in poverty or of minorities who are at risk. ACF's Head Start program offers comprehensive early childhood education, nutrition, and health and social services to low-income children nationwide. Participants in this collaborative are learning and implementing an organizational approach to caring for people with chronic disease in a primary care setting. The majority of HHS funds dedicated to asthma treatment in underserved populations provide direct health services. HHS agencies are tracking the disease to build data necessary for assessing the effectiveness of asthma programs.
Surveillance is critical to research and public health practice.
Combined with studies in large groups of people, surveillance results can identify populations with particularly high or low prevalence of a disease and can shed light on factors influencing the development of asthma. CDC analyzes and publishes data from ongoing surveys on health events such as deaths due to asthma, asthma hospitalizations and emergency department visits for asthma. In 1999, CDC began generating state-level asthma prevalence data through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. In 2001, specific questions on the severity and management of asthma will be included.