Lourdes DelRosso, MD, PhD: Goals, Insights from the “Count on Sleep” OSA Project

The “Count on Sleep” educational campaign, spearheaded by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, aims to educate providers, public health professionals, and patients about obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Lourdes DelRosso, MD, PhD, from the University of California San Francisco, spoke about the “Count on Sleep” project at SLEEP 2024, the 38th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.¹

“Count on Sleep” is a multiyear project 100% supported by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US Department of Health and Human Services who assist with finances of $704,163.²

Project partners, project workgroup volunteers, and community stakeholders are the ones completing the project. Partners of “Count on Sleep” include the Alliance of Sleep Apnea Partners, American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, American Academy of Otolaryngology, American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery, American Thoracic, American College of Chest Physicians, National Sleep Foundation, and Sleep Research Society.

There are 4 project workgroups: provider education workgroup, public awareness and communications workgroup, strategic planning workgroup, and the tool development and surveillance workgroup.¹

The provider education workgroup strives to educate primary care and non-sleep providers on screening, diagnosis, treatment, management, and referral of OSA. The public awareness and communication workgroup determines and implements appropriate public messaging to raise awareness of OSA and encourage seeking diagnosis and treatment.

The strategic planning workgroup delivers comprehensive oversight for the project, ensuring all the workgroups are aligned and progressing toward the desired outcomes and deliverables. Lastly, the tool development surveillance workgroup creates public health materials, such as the National Indicator report, and recognizes and suggests survey solutions to close OSA data gaps.

DelRosso serves as the chair of the public awareness and communications workgroup. At SLEEP 2024, she told HCPLive about the “Count on Sleep” project’s key goals in the next year.

“We want to eradicate the undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea,” DelRosso said.

She added how the project is working on educating providers—especially primary care providers—from all backgrounds on diagnosis and referral information for patients with OSA symptoms. The program has created culturally oriented martials for education, such as a Latino campaign sometimes people are unaware of.

“We want to reach all the communities to provide education that can be integrated in the in the medical visit,” DelRosso said. “Particularly for me, as a Latino physician, [it] is very important that the message reaches my patients in their own language and in their own cultures. For other groups in America, [it] is the same thing that we have other groups or the populations we want to send a message in their own words in their own culture in their own way that they can understand.”

Delrosso's relevant disclosures include Pharmacosmos Therapeutics.

References

1. ^{DelRosso, L, Park, J, Rodriguez, A, et al. Updates from "Count on Sleep": An OSA Awareness Project. Presented at SLEEP 2024. Houston, TX. June 4, 2024}
2. ^{About. ASM Sleep Foundation. https://sleepeducation.org/get-involved/count-on-sleep/about/. Accessed June 4, 2024.}
3. ^{Project Workgroups. AASM Sleep Education. https://sleepeducation.org/get-involved/count-on-sleep/project-workgroups/. Accessed June 4, 2024.}