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Dana Alsader Ms. Hofman English 1101- 010 4 December 2012 Discourse community Final draft The discourse community that I chose to write about is RHA, which stands for Respiratory Health Association, an online community. The reason why I chose RHA is because Iam interested in knowing how the smokers could quit smoking and what are the ways that could help them quit it. I come from a family where almost everyone smokes. This story has come quite close to home for me. A close friends father passed away from lung cancer caused by smoking. I am interested in learning more about this issue by searching for various communities that help smokers quit and various methods that could assist with kicking this habit. According to lungchicago.org, RHA has been dedicated and giving to the metropolitan Chicago since 1906 as a public health leader in the Community Lung health. Currently, RHA is focusing on asthma, chronic obstructive Pulmonary Disease, lung cancer, tobacco control and air quality, as well as education and advocacy activities. RHA has a research program that finances local researchers in order to develop treatments, beside hosting numerous education events for health care providers where advisory councils for lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease update the community with new lung health issues. Furthermore, RHA extends itself in reaching out to schools, childcare providers, community organizations and local businesses to educate the community about asthma management strategies, provide flu vaccines & smoking cessation counseling sessions.

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Thanks to the support of the generous donations and sponsorships of the people in their community, RHA has been able to fund their research programs, their educational and awareness campaigns to promote health lungs, and defending the right to carry life-saving asthma inhalers at schools. Analyzing the data using the six characteristics of Swales discourse community was important step in doing this research. During the course of researching about the RHA, I had the opportunity to interview Brian Urbaszewski via email, who is the director, Environmental Health Programs of RHA. I was very lucky and grateful for his time. First Mr. Brian introduced the members of RHA community who are: Doctors, Nurses, Health care providers, professionals, Victims of lung cancer. According to Mr. Brian, all of these members are essential to make this community successful. They help and speak on behalf of people who are suffering from lung disease (e.g. asthma, COPD, lung cancer, and others). They also spend their time working with medical professionals, including doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists to be able to provide the best health care as much as possible. The members cooperate with social service agencies to enhance public health by doing different kinds of activities such as: providing vaccines like flu shots, giving free seminars to give people awareness to prevent smoking, educate students about Asthma in school, and for daycare sponsors. Likewise, Mr. Brian stated that they also support medical researches financially. Furthermore, Mr. Brian explained the set of common public goals (the main goals) of this community. The goal would be to improve lung health and reduce the impact of lung disease through research, advocacy and education. They work on teaching self-management skills for people who suffer from asthma and COPD to save their lives, and teaching kids not to start smoking; which will help in reducing the chances of provoking lung cancer.

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There are many ways of intercommunication among RHA members. The members communicate online through social network websites such as, Facebook. They also have other pages to help them collect donations (cowalunga bike ride, hustle up the hancock stair climb). In addition, they started an electronic newsletters to send out printed newsletter material. Their twitter account is @resphealth. According to RHA facebook page, there are different things that the members communicate about. They share useful medical information and facts that help people to quit smoking and share stories about people succumbing to lung cancer and other issues caused by smoking. They congratulate each other during special holidays such as thanksgiving and veteran day and they remind one another of the activities that the group will host in the future. I wondered if the members get information and feedback through membership (subscriptions, other informational opportunities. But Brian stated: Were not really a membership focused organization. We have people who give us donations or fundraise for us so we can do the work we do. And we provide services as mentioned above, but those services are subsidized at no or low cost to those were serving. In other words, you dont have to be a member of RHA to benefit from what we can provide. This community doesnt acquire many specific lexis (specialized language). The website explains the different health issues for the outsiders. It defines some of the terms that the community uses. For example the term FAN means fight Asthma now, COPD means Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and (CRS) means Chicago Respiratory Society (CRS) RHA is consisted of members from PHD holders to laypeople. They communicate with a variety of people with nonmedical personal, or laypeople. They always try their best to ensure

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they are able to understand the information they provide, without any confusions and technical terms that would hinder the goal of educating them on a particular subject. The RHA society educates the medical profession by procuring a lecture series called, Catch your Breath: Women and Lung Health while collaborating with many other organizations such as the NIOSH Spirometer Course, advocating to assist patients at the local, state and federal levels, provides leadership and assistance to others in the medical field such as physicians and other medical professionals who specialize in pulmonology, reviews applications for research funding and makes recommendations while supporting the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicagos programs and initiatives. Further, being a part of this wonderful community is quite easy. Anyone who would give donations and show interest in getting information on a particular subject could simply be a member. Although, giving donations is not required to be a member, it is absolutely free for everybody. There is an email contact mechanism on the website that would make it easier for people to reach this community. So after I received the email response from Brian with all his answers to my questions, I decided to go ahead and search for more testimonials from actual members by browsing the RHA main website. As a result I found out that one of the success stories was about the Passaglia family that walked in Hike for Lung Health to Honor Rick Passaglia, who has sarcoidosis, which Rick was diagnosed with in the late 90s. Rick suffered from a persistent cough not knowing the cause of it until he did a chest X-ray 10 years later, which revealed the cause of the cough was Sarcoidosis, which Rick commented on I probably had sarcoidosis for five to 10 years before I got diagnosed, and he added I dont blame the doctors for not diagnosing it. I blame myself for not going further to find out what was wrong with me.

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Consequently, it decreased Ricks lung capacity to a degree where it was hard for him to perform simple household tasks he enjoyed doing. Then, later in 2003, Rick got diagnosed with leukemia, and Rick stated I have four daughters, and the youngest was 9 at the time. She took it really hard. Fortunately, Rick got treated from leukemia with what described as leukemia miracle drug which got approved by the FDA. Rick now is able to manage and cope with sarcoidosis; since he can hike up to 4 miles a week. Rick recently stated I am grateful for all that I am able to do and dont think of what I no longer can. There are many folks much worse off than me. Life is good. And there are so many other stories in the RHA Human Interest Story Archive. I think that this community could be an example of having the three modes of belonging. According to Wardle, the three ways that newcomers try to belong in a new community are: being engaged in that community, having imagination, and having alignment. Engagement is important in RHA because its the way that develops the relationship among its members. Members get to know each other. They come from different worlds. Kids who suffer from different health problems communicate with each other through different kinds of activities such as climbing, biking, walking and running. Nurses and doctors work with each other making researches. Its a united community that could be an example of the engagement mode. Also, imagination is required in this community. The members discover different kind of events every week. They make videos and other media that could help the kids quit smoking and all that comes from their imagination. We could consider this community as a multiliteracies community. Doctor and nurses use developed literacy skills to teach children to manage their asthma. According to the website, We foster basic, clinical and behavioral re- search to find cures and improve treatment for those with lung disease through our local scientific research program, and participation in the ALA

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National research program. In 2005-2006, ALAMC helped fund the work of six scientists in Cook County and contrib- uted to the nationwide Asthma Clinical research Network, which conducts large trials to improve the care of asthma patients. As I said before, the members of this organization have different backgrounds and experiences. Some of them are nurses, doctors and volunteers. All these members contributed to discover many ways to fight disease. All in all, after analyzing all the data that I compiled on RHA, I conclude that this association stands for what it does and it does what it stands for and beyond. If all the association and the organizations were dedicated like RHA, the world would be a better place.

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References:

Alsader, Dana. "Re: questions about RHA community." Message to Urbaszewski, Brian. 15 Nov. 2012. E-mail. Respiratory Health Association. ePageCity, Chicago Designers, 1999. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.lungchicago.org/about/>