Improving Asthma Care by Partnering With School Nurses to Bring Asthma Care Into the Inner-City Schools

Overview

This is a pilot study to improve the partnership between Cincinnati Children's Medical Center (CCHMC), Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS), and Cincinnati Health Department (CHD) to reduce childhood asthma in the inner city schools of Cincinnati and CCHMC. We are calling this project "asthma-free schools" and bringing it to neighborhoods where the incidence of asthma is especially high. We have designed this study to work with school-based asthma care programs. Children with high-risk asthma will be asked to participate. "High-risk" will be defined as poorly controlled asthma, frequent school absences, and/or need for daily controller asthma medications. We will use a commercially available inhaler cap sensor to help track medication use and symptoms through a smartphone. The study visits will be done mostly at the school using telehealth technology similar to Skype.

This study is part of a community health collaboration between Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), the local public health department and designated inner city schools. The purpose is to address school-based asthma care barriers and then to test the efficacy of this program in a pilot study to improve asthma outcomes in 30 urban core youth. Greater Cincinnati's geography places it at the environmentally tricky confluence of low-lying smog-trapping hills, three heavily traveled interstate highways, and high rate of allergen exposure. This makes it an area ripe for asthma. The overall rate of pediatric asthma in Greater Cincinnati is more than twice the national average and, in some urban-core neighborhoods, as high as 10 times the national rate. Poor asthma control across the nation and locally in Cincinnati is associated with an overrepresentation of children from minority groups, low-income families, and single parent households who deal with economic hardship and familial strain compared to those with well-controlled asthma. Data show that no more than 50% of patients keep appointments or fill prescriptions, leading to continued poor asthma control and risk for future exacerbation. This is an interventional pilot study where about 30 high-risk asthmatic participants will be identified to participate and a number of interventions will be incorporated including asthma specific questionnaires, use of a commercially available inhaler cap with monitoring sensor, a mobile software management platform that tracks adherence of all asthma medications, mobile based telehealth medical visits to assess asthma control, and mobile based telehealth adherence problem-solving interventions. This proposal is funded through a Luther Foundation and Verizon Foundation philanthropic gifts.