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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Respiratory Disease

Goal: Improve respiratory health.

A health care provider listens to a patient's heartbeat with a stethoscope.

Respiratory diseases affect millions of people in the United States. Healthy People 2030 focuses on increasing prevention, detection, and treatment of respiratory diseases.

About 25 million people in the United States have asthma.1 Strategies to reduce environmental triggers and make sure people get the right medications can help prevent hospital visits for asthma. In addition, more than 16 million people in the United States have COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which is a major cause of death.2 Strategies to prevent the disease — like reducing air pollution and helping people quit smoking — are key to reducing deaths from COPD.

Interventions tailored to at-risk groups can also help prevent and treat other respiratory diseases — for example, pneumonia in older adults and pneumoconiosis in coal miners. And increasing lung cancer screening rates can help reduce deaths from lung cancer through early detection and treatment.

Objective Status

  • 2 Target met or exceeded
  • 2 Improving
  • 5 Little or no detectable change
  • 0 Getting worse
  • 2 Baseline only
  • 4 Developmental
  • 0 Research

Learn more about objective types

Related Objectives

The following is a sample of objectives related to this topic. Some objectives may include population data.

Respiratory Disease — General

Reduce hospitalizations for asthma in people aged 5 to 64 years — RD‑D02
Developmental
Reduce deaths from COPD in adults — RD‑05
Target met or exceeded

Cancer

Reduce the lung cancer death rate — C‑02
Improving
Increase the proportion of adults who get screened for lung cancer — C‑03
Baseline only

Children

Reduce emergency department visits for children under 5 years with asthma — RD‑02
Little or no detectable change
Reduce hospitalizations for asthma in children under 5 years — RD‑D01
Developmental

Hospital and Emergency Services

Reduce emergency department visits for COPD in adults — RD‑06
Target met or exceeded
Reduce emergency department visits for people aged 5 years and over with asthma — RD‑03
Little or no detectable change
Reduce hospitalizations for COPD — RD‑D04
Developmental

Neighborhood and Built Environment

Reduce asthma deaths — RD‑01
Little or no detectable change
Reduce asthma attacks — RD‑04
Little or no detectable change

Older Adults

Reduce the rate of hospital admissions for pneumonia among older adults — OA‑06
Baseline only
Reduce hospitalizations for asthma in adults aged 65 years and over — RD‑D03
Developmental

Sleep

Increase the proportion of adults with sleep apnea symptoms who get evaluated by a health care provider — SH‑02
Little or no detectable change

Workplace

Reduce pneumoconiosis deaths — OSH‑04
Improving

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References

1.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (May 2023). Most Recent National Asthma Data. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/most_recent_national_asthma_data.htm

2.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (May 2017). COPD National Action Plan. Retrieved from https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sites/default/files/media/docs/COPD%20National%20Action%20Plan%20508_0.pdf [PDF - 5.8 MB]