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Twice a day, adorable fourth-grader Emmanuel Perez sits on his trundle bed, places a mask over his face and breathes in steroids to open his airwaves.
He could die if he didn't.
Like thousands of kids who live in East Harlem public housing, Emmanuel, 9, suffers from asthma.
"He struggles," said his mother, Asia Graves, during a recent visit to their apartment in the Robert Wagner Houses on Second Ave.
"He has missed 30 days of school this year, and has been to the hospital nine times for urgent care."
The asthma triggers in their neatly kept but decaying apartment would be worse if not for Ray Lopez - the director of environmental health at the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Services (LSA) on E. 115th St.
He has been making house calls since 2001.
"Ray came in and showed me how to get rid of the extra dust [no carpets or curtains]; how to plug up the walls to keep mice out, and how to clean the cabinets to keep the roaches out," said Graves, whose 11-year-old son, Mikael, also has asthma.
"It's mind-boggling how much this program helped us. He makes me feel more confident, like I have some control over these dangerous pollutants."
LSA's innovative program dispatches trained workers to people's apartments, where they teach families about the environmental hazards that trigger asthma - and show them how to improve indoor air quality.
Lopez said the nonprofit has helped 1,000 families to date, but given the alarming numbers of children suffering, and the often slow response from the New York City Housing Authority to make repairs, much more needs to be done.
"It's disheartening for me to see these conditions and to hear Asia, and other families in our program, tell us that they report complaints to the Housing Authority's centralized call center and yet nothing gets resolved. No one should have to endure this," said Lopez.
LSA got welcome word on Monday that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded a $549,000 grant for the group to go door to door, rigorously assessing and improving indoor conditions in East Harlem's public housing.
The New York Academy of Medicine will monitor the findings, creating a national model for other cities around the country.
For East Harlem kids living in public housing, the help couldn't come fast enough.
The statistics are alarming.
East Harlem children shoulder a disproportionately high burden of asthma relative to the rest of the city and the country.
Nearly 19% of East Harlem 4- and 5-year-olds have asthma, double the New York City rate.
"East Harlem is the Ground Zero for asthma in the United States," said Adolfo Carrion, the regional administrator for HUD at a press conference announcing the first-of-its-kind grant on Monday at the Jefferson Houses.
"These are frightful facts," he added. "Health workers from Little Sisters of the Assumption are going to embed themselves. They are a trusted presence in the community."
John Gant, the director of HUD's Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control, said New York City beat out several other cities in winning the grant.
He also noted that cities like Boston and Detroit have already mandated smoke-free city housing, and hoped New York City would eventually follow suit, given the health effects of second-hand smoke.
"No one, especially a child, should be worried that their home is making them sick," said Gant.
Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org
Reporters: to arrange interviews with NYAM medical and urban health experts, contact
Andrew J. Martin, Director of Communications
212-822-7285 / amartin@nyam.org
The 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture - The Affordable Care Act: An Insider’s View
Featured Speaker: Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
November 19, 2012 - The NYAM Section on Health Care Delivery welcomes Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who will deliver the 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture on "The Affordable Care Act: An Insider's View."
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The New York Academy of Medicine with support from the New York State Heath Foundation released a new report, Federal Health Care Reform in New York State: A Population Health Perspective.
This report identifies opportunities that build on both the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) and New York’s ongoing efforts toward improving the health of its 19 million residents.
Read press release
Read report
