Brief History: The alliance began with a personal interest in the assessment program based on asthma data and a desire to meet an objective of crosscutting strategies within the Health District. Working with the American Lung Association® of Washington we began to identify a core group and planned a regional interest group at the October 18, 2002 WA Asthma Initiative meeting. The goals of this meeting were to determine interest, current activities, and future direction. Based on lists of interested individuals involved in previous county asthma activities, we developed list of possible partners. An invitation letter and flyer were sent to multi-disciplinary groups advertising a March 2003 meeting. This March meeting was our first community asthma meeting and began with an emphasis of data to focus our needs. Also, it was important to develop broad-based community representation to effectively deal with the complexity of asthma prevention.

Mission, Vision, Goals/Objectives: Mission: AASC is a network of community members working to decrease the development, prevalence, and impact of asthma in Snohomish County.

Structure (committees/workgroups) & Meeting Frequency: The alliance is coordinated by SHD. A planning committee consists of five individuals representing SHD's Health Statistics & Assessment and Community Mobilization Programs, ALAW, Providence Everett Medical Center and Washington State Department of Health. Three workgroups within AASC were identified based on modules identified from a report from the Kaiser Permanente and ALAW National Partnership on Asthma Conference, November 2000 in Wash. DC. The three work groups are: school, medical care, and environment/community. Since March, AASC has 3 hour meetings once a month.

Partners/Members (how many, organizations/types represented): There are over 70 individuals representing a variety of agencies and organizations: school districts, Head Start, child care, clinics, hospitals, pharmaceutical, Washington State Medical Association, Snohomish Health District, Snohomish County Weatherization Program, the EPA, and American Lung Association of Washington.

Priorities: A priority was to base efforts on data to provide direction and understanding of the impact and variation of asthma in our county. Because of the complexity of asthma a community approach was desired to identify needs and develop activities based on a broad representation of professions, knowledge, skills and experience. The hope was that the products would promote community ownership.

Staff: Primary coordination and development has been the staff of Health Statistics and Assessment with support from Community Mobilization.

Contact Information:
Jane Ballard, Manager of Health Statistics and Assessment
3020 Rucker Avenue, Suite 102
Everett, WA 98201-3900
425.339.8615
jballard@shd.snohomish.wa.gov