Alejandro “Alex” Vazquez knows what it’s like to live with childhood asthma. “I was such a sick kid. I remember all the missed days of school and feeling helpless when I couldn’t breathe, especially when I ended up in the hospital.”
Today, Vazquez serves as an ambulatory clinical pharmacist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s Severe Asthma Clinic. There he helps children and families better understand the risks of unhealthy air, recognize when the air is dangerous and how to take appropriate steps to prevent severe asthma attacks.
Through a pilot program, supported by the American Lung Association and CVS Health, Vazquez has helped developed and is now implementing an educational intervention to minimize the risk of a severe asthma attack. While air pollution impacts everyone, children, older adults and individuals living with asthma, COPD and other lung and health conditions face the greatest risk of life-threatening complications.
The CVS Health Foundation is investing $3.5 million over four years for the Lung Association to help improve clean air and health outcomes in local, at-risk communities, including Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. The program works with healthcare providers to create and distribute tools to improve lung health, promotes policies to protect lung health and empowers individuals living with lung diseases to reduce the risk of healthcare complications. According to the Lung Association’s 2025 State of the Air Report, Phoenix is the fourth worst city in the U.S. for ozone pollution, and 20th for year-round particle pollution.
Dry air, dust, fewer plants, pollution from industry and mines and prolonged heat contribute to unhealthy air. “It’s like living in a bowl where the particles are stuck,” says Vazquez.
“Air quality is important for patients with asthma, especially in this state and this area,” said Vazquez. “We decided to take a quality-improvement approach to see if education would be helpful for our patients.”
Each participating child receives a baseline breathing test, while their parent or guardian fills out a survey on the child’s health, noting asthma history, severity and triggers. Based on this information, Vazquez provides an hour-long educational session, with fact sheets and resources on how to monitor air quality as well as a personalized plan on how to manage poor air quality days. Some recommended precautions include additional medication, wearing a mask and/or staying indoors.
Vazquez then follows up with each child and guardian one month later to gauge if the new information and action plan are helping to minimize the prevalence of severe asthma attacks. The child’s asthma plan is updated at each visit.
To date, approximately 50 children have participated in the program. “We’ve received very positive feedback,” said Vazquez. “When we called them back, they were using the resources, checking air quality, giving their child a mask, pretreating them and keeping them indoors, when necessary.”
For Vazquez, whose own experience with childhood asthma inspires his work at the Severe Asthma Clinic, this progress is particularly rewarding. “It’s really cool to help these kids plan for and prevent an asthma attack, so they can hopefully live more active, healthier lives,” said Vazquez.
The Lung Association is also supporting the distribution of outdoor sensors—nearly 400 to date —to monitor air quality throughout the Phoenix area.
Vazquez, who is an assistant professor at the University of Phoenix School of Pharmacy, plans to distribute additional sensors to his adult patients to better gauge communities at high risk for unhealthy air and how unhealthy air broadly impacts local health, including for people without a history of asthma or lung disease. The data can be used to improve health protocols, outcomes, and help adults living with asthma become empowered to share their story.
In the U.S., more than 156 million people live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution levels. While air pollution has improved across much of the U.S., wildfires, flooding and other climate-related events threaten this progress and contribute to unhealthy air quality that may cause or worsen lung disease. In the past year, Vazquez says the Phoenix area has seen more fires, more dryness and more dust, “directly affecting not just our patients. It’s bad for everybody.”
The Lung Association is also working with healthcare providers, local organizations and individuals and families living with lung disease in The Bronx, one of the five boroughs in New York City, and Houston, Texas, that are also disproportionately impacted by poor air quality.
Read out State of the Air report to see how air pollution is affecting your hometown.
Blog last updated: February 23, 2026
