Addressing the Burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in Rural America from the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services
Date:
Duration: approximately
minutes
Featured Speakers
- Former Governor Ronnie Musgrove, JD, Committee Chair for the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services
- Antonello (Tony) Punturieri, MD, PhD, Program Director, Division of Lung Diseases, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Kathleen Dalton, PhD, Retired Research Faculty, Department of Health Policy and Administration, University of North Carolina's School of Public Health
- Grace Anne Dorney Koppel, MA, JD, President, Dorney-Koppel Foundation
As one of the leading contributors to morbidity and mortality in the United States, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects approximately 15-16 million Americans, with millions more who are undiagnosed and unaware they have the disease.
While the disease is a public health concern that touches every geography, national COPD surveillance has consistently shown the disease burden disproportionately affects rural communities more so than urban populations. In 2018, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed significantly higher estimates of adult prevalence, Medicare hospitalizations, and deaths along an increasing rurality gradient. Moreover, these rural-urban disparities in COPD outcomes may even be more pronounced given existing rural healthcare barriers, including lack of access to transportation and specialty care, workforce shortages, and insurance challenges, among others.
In this webinar, speakers will dive further into existing rural-urban COPD outcomes; highlight the Committee's policy recommendations to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; and shed light on a patient's perspective living with the disease.