HR6052-119

What This Bill Does

The Elijah E. Cummings Family Asthma Act begins with findings on the scale and inequities of asthma: in 2023 more than 27.8 million people in the United States had asthma, including 4.8 million children; more than 3,600 people died from asthma; asthma accounted for about 131,000 hospitalizations and 1.1 million emergency department visits in 2022; and annual costs were about $81.9 billion. It then rewrites Public Health Service Act section 317I. HHS, through CDC and the National Center for Environmental Health, must collaborate with State and local health departments on public information and education about uncontrolled asthma, prevention of asthma episodes, and management strategies. Within one year, CDC must work with State and local health departments to develop State strategic plans for asthma control, especially for disproportionately affected populations. CDC must conduct surveillance on prevalence, severity, intervention effectiveness, and management quality; collect data from people with asthma, health care facilities, electronic health records, or other communications; annually publish child and adult prevalence, mortality, hospital admission, and emergency department visit data disaggregated by State, age, sex, race, and ethnicity; modernize surveillance for real-time exchange among health care, schools, and public health entities; and protect individually identifiable information. CDC may work with nonprofit organizations on asthma education. HHS must report to Congress within three years and every two years after that on federal asthma activities, gaps, duplications, recommendations, and coordination. The bill also requires national measures and goals for reducing asthma morbidity and mortality and improving quality of life.

Who Benefits and How

People with asthma benefit from expanded public education, surveillance, and public health interventions aimed at reducing uncontrolled asthma, emergency visits, and hospitalizations. Children with asthma benefit because CDC must annually publish childhood prevalence, mortality, hospital admission, and emergency department data. Black, Native, Puerto Rican, low-income, and other disproportionately affected communities benefit from State strategic plans focused on asthma burden reduction. State and local health departments benefit from CDC collaboration, consistent methodology, real-time data modernization, and trend reports. Researchers, medical societies, patient groups, and asthma nonprofits benefit from better public data and recurring federal reports on activities and gaps.

Who Bears the Burden and How

CDC and the National Center for Environmental Health must run public education, State planning, surveillance, data modernization, annual publication, nonprofit collaboration, and performance-measure work. State and local health departments must help develop strategic plans and share comparable asthma data. Health care facilities, schools, and public health data systems may need to support real-time data exchange while protecting privacy. HHS reporting staff must submit recurring asthma activity reports to Congress. Federal taxpayers fund expanded asthma surveillance, education, data, and coordination activities.

Key Provisions

• Requires CDC and the National Center for Environmental Health to collaborate with State and local health departments on asthma education.
• Requires State strategic asthma-control plans within one year, with emphasis on disproportionately affected populations.
• Requires asthma surveillance, real-time data modernization, annual disaggregated data publication, and privacy protections.
• Authorizes CDC collaboration with national, State, and local nonprofit organizations on asthma information and education.
• Requires recurring HHS reports to Congress on federal asthma prevention, management, surveillance, gaps, duplication, and recommendations.
• Requires national asthma measures and goals for reducing morbidity and mortality and improving quality of life.