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Asthma Home Management in the Inner-City: What can the Children Teach us?
Insights
Asthma home management is challenging for low-income minority children. Addressing multifaceted barriers requires comprehensive support, including education, housing, and smoking cessation resources.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Pulmonology
- Health Disparities Research
- Community Health
Background:
- Limited understanding exists regarding asthma home management strategies for underserved pediatric populations.
- Children from low-income minority backgrounds often face significant challenges in managing their asthma effectively.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the perspectives of low-income, minority children with asthma on home management practices.
- To identify barriers and facilitators to effective asthma self-management in this vulnerable group.
Main Methods:
- Focus groups were conducted with thirteen children (mean age 9.2 years) from low-income households with frequent emergency department visits for asthma.
- Data analysis employed grounded theory coding techniques to identify emergent themes.
Main Results:
- Participants were predominantly African American, enrolled in Medicaid, and lived in homes with smokers.
- Two major themes emerged, highlighting complex challenges in developing proper asthma self-management skills.
Conclusions:
- A multipronged approach is crucial for improving asthma control in high-risk pediatric populations.
- Interventions should encompass child and family education, self-management support, environmental control, housing assistance, smoking cessation programs, and psychosocial support.
Objective:
Knowledge of asthma home management from the perspective of poor, minority children with asthma is limited.
Method:
Convenience sampling methods were used to recruit families of low-income children who are frequently in the emergency department for uncontrolled asthma. Thirteen youths participated in focus groups designed to elicit reflections on asthma home management. Data were analyzed using grounded theory coding techniques.
Results:
Participants (Mean age = 9.2 years) were African American (100%), enrolled in Medicaid (92.3%), averaged 1.4 (standard deviation = 0.7) emergency department visits over the prior 3 months, and resided in homes with at least 1 smoker (61.5%). Two themes reflecting multifaceted challenges to the development proper of self-management emerged in the analysis.
Discussion:
Findings reinforce the need to provide a multipronged approach to improve asthma control in this high-risk population including ongoing child and family education and self-management support, environmental control and housing resources, linkages to smoking cessation programs, and psychosocial support.
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