Promoting Health in Low-Income Communities

Abstract

As one of the most common chronic illnesses in children in the United States, asthma also is a leading cause for emergency room visits and hospitalizations among youth. Multicomponent interventions are effective in improving asthma symptoms when home visits and education also are part of professional assistance to reduce environmental triggers. This article will report the results of one such educational program, Asthma Safe Kids (ASK), delivered through an academic urban nurse managed center. It will compare barriers to ASK program delivery to strengths of a more successful program. In addition, 3 gaps in existing literature about home-based asthma intervention will be presented: (a) current reports do not describe details about planning and implementing programs or identify components that weakened outreach or implementation; (b) lists of partnerships do not include urban academic nurse managed centers, a resource for in-home asthma program startup and sustainability in more than 100 neighborhoods and clinics; and (c) conceptual frameworks for program planning and delivery are not identified. Applying an interactional approach to community programming—different from community-based participatory research—is suggested to improve participant recruitment and family outreach and, ultimately, to reduce asthma-related exacerbations among children and adolescents.