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Health, where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading

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Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers. Today, asthma. Dr. Elizabeth Matsui, a pediatrician and allergy and immunology researcher,

talks to Stephanie Desmond about how environmental factors, from housing conditions to air pollution,

play a key role in racial and ethnic disparities in asthma. She also discusses why asthma

exacerbations don't just make it hard to be a kid. It can

contribute to lifelong lung disease. Let's listen. Elizabeth Matsui, thanks so much for joining me

on public health on call. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about asthma.

Let's start super easy. What is asthma?

Asthma, and I'm going to use a bit of a technical term, but then explain it, is a disease whose root cause is inflammation in the lungs.

And so what is inflammation?

I tell my patients and their families that inflammation is essentially what is going on when you have a rash. So you can see

the rash on your skin. It's red. It's maybe tender. It may be swollen. It could be itchy or

painful. Asthma is a condition where there's inflammation that lines the airways. And then because

of that inflammation, you can have narrowing of the airways.

So the tubes you're breathing in and out of are smaller, and it makes you may start coughing

or may have trouble breathing.

So there are a variety of ways, obviously, that you can address that inflammation.

But fundamentally, that's what asthma is.

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