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星期二, 9月 22, 2015

BOSTON PUBLIC HEALTH COMMISSION RECEIVES GRANT FROM NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

BOSTON PUBLIC HEALTH COMMISSION RECEIVES GRANT FROM NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Planning Grant Will Allow BPHC, Healthcare Partners to Continue Focus on Asthma Study and Reduction
BOSTON – Tuesday, September 22, 2015 – The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) today announced that is has received a $327,000 grant to support planning the implementation of a research program focused on children at high risk of poor asthma outcomes. The grant is funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Creating Asthma Empowerment Collaborations to Reduce Asthma Disparities and was awarded to BPHC, in partnership with Boston Medical Center, for the creation of its Boston High-risk Asthma Program Pathway in Youth (BHAPPY) study.
“Boston is rich with resources for families and individuals with asthma, but sometimes accessing these resources can be time consuming and confusing,” said Dr. Huy Nguyen, Interim Director of the Boston Public Health Commission. “This grant will allow us to test having a patient navigator work with the families to integrate services and care across clinical, home, school, childcare and other settings to ensure families have access to all the resources available, putting the patient first.”
“This is an enormous opportunity to address extreme racial disparities in Boston, ensuring kids under five get the best medical care possible in their community,” said Megan Sandel, MD MPH of Boston Medical Center and Co-Principal Investigator for the project.
The funding requires grantees to ensure that interventions for proper asthma care are taking place in multiple settings, which include in schools, childcare centers, clinical settings and at home. Once the planning period is finished, BPHC will apply for additional funding, up to $5.5 million over six years, to support the actual clinical trial, assess of the sustainability of the interventions and define best practices for implementation of interventions.

The BHAPPY study recognizes that Black, Latino and low-income youth suffer a disproportionate burden of asthma in the United States. In Boston, this asthma inequitable burden is particularly striking in children ages 0-5. The study leverages an existing public health/community/healthcare partnership to address asthma disparities among these children receiving asthma care at primary care clinics serving predominantly low income Black and Latino families in Boston and to ensure communication between clinical sites and schools or child care centers to ensure that children are healthy and able to attend school or childcare, sleep at night and be active.
The planning process for the BHAPPY study aims to engage community stakeholders, such as health care providers, parents of asthmatic children, school/childcare providers, insurers, other community partners to design best practices; develop a process to implement the BHAPPY asthma pathway, using this feedback; and develop an implementation study to test the effectiveness of the intervention on outcomes.
Also involved in the planning year will be Health Resources in Action, who will undertake surveys and focus groups to gather information and will involve childcare sites, Boston Public Schools and Boston ABCD, which oversees Head Start programs, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which will ensure coordination with statewide asthma initiatives.
BPHC has been a national leader in asthma prevention and control since 1998. From 2008-2012, the City saw a significant decrease in Emergency Department usage due to asthma among children under age five. Additionally, Black and Latino children in Boston, who usually have particularly high rates of Emergency Department use due to asthma, also experienced significant reductions during this period.
The Commission operates a number of initiatives to help children and adults manage the symptoms of and the environmental contributors to asthma. These initiatives include free home visits for qualifying Boston residents conducted by a trained community health worker to help reinforce the individual’s asthma management plan and provide education, low cost supplies and referrals to reduce environmental asthma triggers. The Commission also works with the City’s Inspectional Services Department to conduct home inspections to identify and address asthma triggers that violate the Massachusetts Sanitary Code and work with property owners to eliminate these poor housing conditions.

For more information, visit www.bphc.org.

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