Los Angeles, CA – May 18, 2012: In recognition of Asthma Awareness Month, Health Nuts Media has launched an animated asthma education series titled Huff & Puff: An Asthma Tale. The seven-episode cartoon is already helping national healthcare insurance plans, health literacy partners, and local community organizations teach kids about asthma.

Watch the videos at: Huff & Puff: An Asthma Tale

“With rates of asthma rising among children, doctors and parents need health education that is engaging and fun for kids to watch,” said Tim Jones, CEO, Health Nuts Media. “If Health Nuts Media can get children excited about listening to the Big Bad Wolf talk about asthma, we have the opportunity to make a real impact on asthma, and help improve kids’ quality of life.” (more…)

Asthma problems continue to rise in American. So says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a report issued earlier this week. Asthma education and action plans are “key” to helping stem the increase in asthma problems for both adults and children.

This is National Asthma Awareness Month. It’s a little disheartening to know that despite better treatment options, asthma continues to rise as a major cause of illness, hospitalizations, missed work or school days, and early death. Check these staggering numbers (more…)

Education technology provider collaboration turns focus to building knowledge of environmental triggers, treatment and more for asthma

WOODBURY, N.Y., May 10, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Learn360Awareness, an initiative from Learn360 designed to build awareness of specific topics and link supporting educational content to those topics, in partnership with Health Nuts Media, today announces the launch of its third initiative focusing on asthma.

“Nearly 1 in 10 school-aged children suffer from Asthma, making it the leading cause of absenteeism in the U.S. representing nearly 14 million missed school days annually,” said Chris Sanborn, president of Learn360. “The effects of this disease can be dramatically minimized with easy-to-adopt classroom environmental control practices. (more…)

And, speaking of great asthma education resources…

Oh, sorry, I guess that was just in my head. Well, since we’re on the topic, I came across some really great asthma education resources that I thought would be good to share.

As you know, a lot of web content is pretty weak. Some is downright wrong and may even be harmful. Other sites may not be so much bad as they are a waste of time.

There are a few I’ve found that are rock solid reliable and, if you’re looking for quality asthma education resources, these will bring a good return on your time investment “dollar”, so to speak. (more…)

AAAAI!!! Sounds more like something you might scream when running away from asthma education, doesn’t it? But, actually, “AAAAI” is the short name for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and they have loads of asthma education tools. Plus, they now have a new Just for Kids section. It has games, puzzles, storybooks, video, and more.

Their new spokesperson is Mr. Nose-it-All. (As you can see from his picture, he’s actually more of a “spokes-nose”.) Mr. Nose-it-All has pages and pages of word games, bubble pop games, coloring books, matching games, storybooks, even a BrainPOP video with Tim and Moby. (more…)

With the right asthma education and supervision, 85% of asthma patients can bring their condition under good control. So says a report in The Archives of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in August, 2011. According to that same report, poorly-controlled asthma resulted 50% higher direct costs, 800% higher indirect costs (such as missed days of parental work), and huge academic impact on children from missed school days.

But asthma is complex. Asthma care and asthma attack prevention take some serious understanding to do well. Without the right tools, without the right kind of educational options that work for them, consumers face a huge challenge in understanding the complexities of asthma and its management. (more…)

Everybody knows that the Internet is just bursting with information. It seems you can find just about anything these days. But, when it comes to health information, there’s a whole bunch of really bad information all jumbled up with the good stuff. It can be really hard to know what to believe and what is just plain, old quackery. (Kids, remember: just because it’s on the Web doesn’t mean it’s true!)

In fact, we had this exact issue brought to us by a group of high school kids who were looking on the Internet for some asthma information for a class project. (more…)

“Hey, it helps me breathe better, so why shouldn’t I use it every day?” I hear some version of that fairly often, especially with kids (or parents) who are new to all this asthma stuff. It seems like a pretty reasonable question…at least until you learn the whole truth.

The whole truth, in a short version, is that if you need your rescue inhaler (your “puffer” or “MDI”), you should use it. But, the full truth is that if you’re needing your rescue inhaler too often, it means that things aren’t good enough, that your lungs aren’t as stable as they should be. And that means that you are at risk.

Using your rescue medicine too often can actually be dangerous. (more…)

Hal and his brother, Sal, were playing basketball at the park near their home. Their neighbor, Smokey Joe, was walking by looking very sad. His head was down and so were the corners of his mouth. He was “in the dumps” as they say.

Smokey Joe was a little older, just out of high school. He still lived at home with his parents while he went to a nearby trade school learning how to do air conditioning repair. He was always just a little scruffy-looking, like he just got out of bed. But, he was a nice guy, someone Hal and Sal had known for years. Joe used to watch them when their parents went out for an evening.

“Hey, Joe. Why so low?” yelled Hal. Smokey Joe, without even looking up, stopped, shrugged his shoulders, and plopped down on a park bench by the b-ball court. He seemed to be ready to cry.

Hal stopped dribbling, passed the ball to Sal, and walked over to Smokey Joe. He noticed that Joe seemed to be having a little trouble breathing. He could hear him wheeze (more…)