The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) teamed with Rady Children’s Hospital and University of California San Diego in California, to improve asthma health care for kids with severe asthma. The AAFA Severe Asthma Program clinic at Rady treats children with severe persistent, uncontrolled asthma. The program offers families access to several health care providers who work as a team to treat asthma. This includes allergists, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, nurses, and community health workers. AAFA helped expand this program through funding, education support, and building its community network.

UC San Diego and Rady Children’s looked at the program’s impacts after one year. In a study of 50 patients, researchers looked at changes in children’s asthma symptoms, education, and control before and after joining the clinic’s program.

The results showed that the Severe Asthma Program:

• Improved asthma symptoms and lung function
• Reduced emergency room visits and hospital stays
  
  

This research shows this program has helped children have better asthma education, symptom control, and health. With each visit, the children’s asthma symptoms became less severe. Their lung function also improved. After one year in the program, they had fewer emergency department visits and hospital stays. Better asthma knowledge and control can lead to reduced health care costs.

This research shows the program has helped the children in their program have better asthma education, symptom control, and health. It offers a promising example of how this type of severe asthma program can improve asthma health outcomes. More research is needed to follow more children for a longer period of time.

A poster on the research is being presented at the 2021 American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting. The ACAAI Annual Meeting is Nov. 4-8, 2021, in New Orleans, Louisiana.