The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) has designated May as National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month with this year’s focus on the power of community to improve the health of those with asthma and allergies.

Asthma is a chronic lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe, according to the American Lung Association. People with asthma always have a little swelling or inflammation inside their airways. When exposed to a trigger, the airways can swell even more, have muscle tightening, and produce extra mucus, which makes breathing even harder. Symptoms include wheezing, frequent cough, shortness of breath, and chest tightness. Asthma triggers for people vary, but the most common triggers can include respiratory infections, allergens, irritants, exercise, and even emotions such as anxiety, laughing, or crying. The disease accounts for millions of emergency department visits and tens of billions of dollars in healthcare costs each year.

“Asthma and allergic diseases are not managed in isolation,” said Melanie Carver, chief mission officer at AAFA. “Reducing exposure to symptom triggers in your lived environment requires cooperation and support from those around you. This can range from smoke-free housing and monitoring food for the presence of allergens to policies and regulations that reduce air pollution. A community health approach is essential.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans spend up to 90% of their time indoors, and indoor allergens and irritants play a significant role in triggering asthma attacks. Triggers include molds, dust mites, smoke, pests, pets, nitrogen dioxide, outdoor air pollution, and chemical irritants.

During the month of May, AAFA will highlight the importance of a strong community of support for people with asthma and allergic diseases and equip people with the resources necessary to save and improve lives.

“Nearly one out of three people in the U.S. have asthma and/or allergies—including 28 million people with asthma,” said Kenneth Mendez, president and CEO of AAFA. “Untreated asthma increases healthcare costs, results in lost productivity, and risks lives. Between nine and 11 people die each day from asthma, and nearly all of those deaths are preventable with access to effective treatment.”

For information on National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month, including a full calendar of events, fact sheets, shareable infographics and more, visit: aafa.org/awareness.

Illinois’s newly updated School Vaccination Coverage Dashboard shows that coverage rates for all school-required childhood immunizations are holding steady compared to last year, and all but one of those immunizations is above the state’s 95% coverage goal to optimize prevention of infectious disease spread.

The dashboard is put together each year by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), using data provided to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) by PreK-12 schools and school districts across Illinois.

The dashboard tracks immunization rates in the current school year (2025-26) for eleven different school-required childhood vaccinations at more than 4,600 Illinois schools. Data from the updated dashboard shows that immunization rates are slightly higher than the previous school year for ten of those eleven vaccines; the only exception is hepatitis B, which was only 0.03% lower than a year earlier.

One of the most encouraging signs from the dashboard data is that almost all of those statewide childhood immunization rates are above 95% for all students. That 95% threshold is seen as optimal to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and to protect those who cannot be vaccinated for health or other reasons. However, the dashboard shows that despite the overall strong statewide numbers, some counties and individual schools are well below that 95% threshold, potentially making people in those areas more vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illness.

The only immunization under the 95% threshold is the meningococcal vaccine, which protects against meningitis (a type of brain infection) and its complications. However, even this vaccine rate has shown improvement at 94.39%, up from 93.88% the previous year. This is a significant improvement from the 2024-25 school year, when three immunizations (meningococcal, pneumococcal, and Hib) were below 95%.

Measles had one of the highest rates of coverage at 96.78%. As a result, Illinois continues to see low case counts of measles, even as total numbers nationwide have soared to their highest levels since measles was declared “eliminated” in 2000.

“Our latest school immunization numbers validate our efforts to make vaccines more accessible,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.