6 Ways You Can Easily Advocate for Asthma

May is Asthma Awareness Month. It’s that time of year we take extra steps to help get the word out about our disease. Here are six simple things you and I can do to help get the word out.

How to advocate for asthma

Talk about it on social media

It’s easy for me as I’ve written many articles about asthma. This time of year I take an extra effort to share some of my articles. This is a good time to share some of your favorite articles about asthma. You can also share articles from right here at Asthma.net. Or, it’s also a good time to share some of your own personal thoughts about our disease. Write about it on your blog or share your story with us.

You can so easily create a blog

There are so many sites you can create a blog on where you can write about your asthma. You can just tell stories about your experiences. A neat thing about blogs is that you can just be yourself. You can just talk about what you think about your disease, and you don't have to worry about proper grammar and stuff like that. Or, if you want, you can do research and write about more intricate details about your disease. Either way, you are educating both yourself and others about our disease. And that is all good.

Talk about it at your child’s school

I have never been invited to speak about asthma at my children’s school. But, I have offered to do it on various occasions. I think it would be such a neat thing to do. I would tell stories about my own personal asthma.  I might also tell stories about how I used to get picked on because of my allergy or asthma symptoms and remind the students about how this is never okay. I’m sure any student in the class with asthma would relate. But I would also educate about asthma in general, and even that would be a plus.

Talk about it with your friends and family

Just opening up about asthma in itself would be a great way of getting the word out about our disease. So often I hear people saying things like, "This person does not understand asthma." Well, who better to talk about it than one of us who are living with it. By talking about it, by sharing our own personal experiences, people can truly get a basic understanding of what it’s like living with a disease like asthma.

Support organizations that support us

There are many organizations with a mission to help us asthmatics. Two I can think of off the top of my head. One is the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. The other is Allergy & Asthma Network. They both offer many tips how you can best advocate for asthma. And there are many other similar organizations. And they offer lots of great information about our disease. And they work hard to get the word out. They also offer more tips on how you can advocate for asthma.

Talk to your Congressmen and Congresswomen

A few years ago I worked with the Allergy & Asthma network and met with various members of Congress. This was a part of the annual Asthma & Allergy Day On Capital Hill. There are various bills pending in Congress that would benefit us asthmatics, like these. If passed, these bills would help us asthmatics. You may not be able to talk directly to members of Congress. But, most of us are able to write letters to our local Representatives and Senators.

Are you an asthma advocate?

These are some simple ways you can help get the word out about asthma. These are simple ways of improving asthma awareness. There are also many other strategies for getting the word out. What about you? Do you make efforts to explain what it's like? Do you advocate on behalf of asthma? Let us know in the comments below.