Breathe California has worked to reduce the impact of lung disease for well over a century. Our organization began as the Santa Clara Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis in 1911, becoming Breathe California on February 12, 2006. During the last century, our name has changed but we have remained the same community based organization dedicated to the core mission of fighting lung disease through prevention, education, services and advocacy.
The Evolution of Our Local Association
- (1911 – 1920) Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, Santa Clara Anti Tuberculosis Association, Santa Clara County Anti-Tuberculosis Society, Santa Clara County Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, and Santa Clara County Anti- Tuberculosis Association
- (1920 – 1960) Santa Clara County Tuberculosis Association
- (1960 – 1967) Santa Clara County Tuberculosis and Health Association
- (1967 – 1970) Tuberculosis and Health Association of Santa Clara-San Benito Counties
- (1970 – 1973) TB & Respiratory Disease Association of Santa Clara – San Benito Counties
- (1973 – 2006) American Lung Association of Santa Clara-San Benito Counties
- (2006 – present) Breathe California of the Bay Area
For a number of years, Breathe California of the Bay Area was affiliated with the American Lung Association (ALA) and the American Lung Association of California (ALAC). In 2006, Breathe California of the Bay Area ended its affiliation with the ALA and the ALAC and is no longer affiliated in any way with those organizations. Breathe California of the Bay Area continues its mission dedicated to healthy air and preventing lung and other air-pollution related diseases by partnering with youth, advocating public policy, supporting air pollution research, and educating the public.
100 Years of Local Service
On March 21, 1911, at a meeting on the campus of what is now San Jose State University, eleven community leaders assembled to found our agency. As the local anti-tuberculosis association, the agency spent its first several decades fighting tuberculosis, for which there was no cure, by promoting good health, hygiene and nutrition at schools and to the general public. By founding a prevention for children not yet diagnosed whose families had tuberculosis and were in special hospitals known as sanitoria, and by raising money and mobilizing the community to conduct research, screen for case finding, and develop an infrastructure for public health (health department) that would halt the spread of tuberculosis.
By the 1950s and 1960s when the first streptomycin and later additional antibiotic drugs were developed to fight tuberculosis, our agency had advanced mobile screening programs for tuberculosis, funded equipment for the County Hospital, and concentrated on high-risk populations in nursing homes, jails, and poverty areas. It had also begun offering programs to train professionals about other lung diseases, to provide education and support for patients who had COPD, and to promote general health education in its communities.
Over the next half century its work would broaden further, with major areas of emphasis including:
- Teaching kids how to manage their asthma;
- Preventing teens from using tobacco;
- Asssisting smokers who want to quit;
- Offering support to local COPD & lung cancer patients;
- Advocating for clean air policies; and
- Supporting innovative lung disease research.
Our founders included three physicians, a minister, a judge, and six prominent women who were active in social programs to assist the needy. They would engage citizens from every walk of life in this work over the coming decades. From community leaders, to Girl Scouts, school clubs, and even prisoners, everyone would join in to fight the “white plague.” This community action model continues today through the agency’s collaborative, partnership-focused model of working.
We believe the most significant impact on people’s lives takes place through local interaction. Through education, political advocacy, cutting-edge research and patient services, we use a comprehensive approach to promote healthy lifestyles and reduce the impact of lung disease. With a committed core of volunteers and staff who hold hope, determination, action and vigilance as the cornerstones to creating change, we will continue our drive to ensure we can all breathe easier.
The last half of our first century has been spent fighting ALL lung disease and its causes — tobacco use and air pollution.
In the 1970s and 1980s we advocated heavily for air quality protections and were responsible for improving highway plans and introducing smog checks locally. We also began a number of patient education and support services which continue to this day: Parents of Asthmatic Children support groups; Camp Superstuff asthma camp; Better Breathers Club support group for chronic lung disease patients; and Breathing Improvement Classes for pulmonary rehabilitation. In the 1980s we were the first to offer smoking cessation classes in the workplace and at schools, and conducted special cessation programs for pregnant women. And we developed a peer mentor program in conjunction with Stanford University under an NIH grant that became a nationwide model for tobacco prevention: CLASP Counseling Leadership Against Smoking Pressures.
We were the first organization in the US to push for multiple ordinances to protect “nonsmokers rights,” winning the first such ordinances in Los Altos and Santa Clara County in the 1970s, and we continued city by city promoting multiple “rounds” of increasingly stringent ordinances. We have now turned to seeking protection from outdoor smoking, such as the landmark San Jose parks ordinance, and multi-unit housing protection such as the landmark Santa Clara County ordinance. In 1988 we turned in more voluntary signatures than any other local agency for Proposition 99, and we continue to support initiatives to raise tobacco taxes, license tobacco, and prevent youth access.
In the 1990s we added new programs in multiple areas: EPA’s IAQ Tools for Schools inspections/remediation of respiratory hazards in schools, asthma management classes in schools, Quit the Hits cessation program for highest-risk students, Project Unity anti-tobacco program for African Americans, Mind the Gap College Advocacy program, Drive-through Flu Clinics, and Smokeless Saturday School for minors cited for tobacco possession and their parents.
This last decade has brought Seniors Breathe Easy services, home inspections, provision of sleep apnea equipment, Youth for a Cool Earth environmental program, Community Connections tobacco control program for priority populations, the coordination of the Silicon Valley Clean Cities Coalition for promotion of alternatively fueled vehicles, …and the founding of the Tuberculosis Prevention Partnership…coming full circle from our beginning.
Over the decades it has become more and more clear that we accomplish the greatest good, the most efficiently, at the least cost, when we work in partnership with other organizations. Although we are highly visible in our community, delivering our own direct services, we have evolved into a highly collaborative agency that frequently provides the training and technical assistance for others who deliver direct services to reach our target populations.