EP. 11: Asthma: When Air Becomes Unequal
from Bioethics Dialogues Hosted by Sanya Dudeja
What does it actually feel like to have an asthma attack with no inhaler, no insurance, and no good options? We start with Jess, a scene from Alison Kenner's Breathtaking that stopped me in class. Then we get into the data: why Philadelphia's air is worse along the I-95 corridor, and why medicine keeps handing out inhalers instead of asking harder questions. Asthma isn't just a medical problem. It's an urban planning problem. Sources: Asthma racial disparities: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/asthma-and-blackafrican-americans https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2114944 Philadelphia air quality + asthma: https://www.phillyvoice.com/philly-air-quality-asthma-highways-industry-redlining/ https://theconversation.com/philadelphias-failing-air-quality-hits-hardest-in-neighborhoods-near-industry-and-highways-where-asthma-rates-soar-286744 https://pubintlaw.org/cases-and-projects/city-council-testimony-on-environmental-health-disparities-and-environmental-racism-in-philadelphia/ Biomedicalization + social determinants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7221057/ https://www.annallergy.org/article/S1081-1206(21)01132-7/fulltext Breathtaking: Kenner, A. (2018). Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change. University of Minnesota Press.
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