This week on Rural Health Leadership Radio we’re talking about COPD advocacy and activism. We’re having that conversation with Grace Anne Dorney Koppel, President of the Dorney-Koppel Foundation.

“Anyone who breathes actually can get COPD because we have this very large number, 25% of people who have never smoked a cigarette.”

~Grace Anne Dorney Koppel

Grace Anne is an educator, a behavioral scientist, and an attorney. She was diagnosed with very severe COPD in 2001 which led her on the path to COPD patient advocacy and activism. Since 2006, she has devoted her training, knowledge and professional life to achieving better outcomes and quality of life for the 30 million Americans and hundreds of million worldwide who have COPD. Grace Anne is a graduate of Fordham University (BA), Stanford University (MA), and Georgetown University School of Law (JD). She has also been awarded a PhD honoris causa from Fordham University, one of her alma maters.

“What gives me hope is that it’s treatable. We don’t have the cure today, but we do have treatments and one day, I do believe we will have a cure if enough of us speak out loudly.”

~Grace Anne Dorney Koppel

Grace Anne has been President of the Dorney-Koppel Foundation since 1999.One of the missions of the Dorney-Koppel Foundation is to provide start-up funding and strategic guidance for pulmonary rehabilitation centers in areas of high COPD prevalence, primarily in rural America, that have no access to pulmonary rehabilitation. Twelve Grace Anne Dorney Pulmonary Rehabilitation Clinics are now in operation in Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia, Louisiana and Maryland. Grace Anne also currently serves on the National Institute of Health’s NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute) Advisory Council.