At a glance
CDC is funding the health departments in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin to improve the reach, quality, effectiveness, and sustainability of asthma control services and to reduce asthma morbidity, mortality and disparities by implementing evidence-based strategies.
Overview
The Houston Asthma Prevention and Control Program has been part of CDC's National Asthma Control Program since 2019. They work alongside partners to reduce asthma disparities by improving the quality of asthma care, improving asthma management in schools, and fostering policies to help reduce exposure to asthma triggers in outdoor, indoor, and workplace environments.
- City of Houston Department of Health
- Decrecia A. Limbrick, MBA
- 832-393-4640
- decrecia.limbrick@houstontx.gov
- Deputy Assistant Director
8000 North Stadium Drive, 3rd Floor
Houston, Texas 77054
Highlights
The Houston Asthma Control through Evidence-based Interventions Project (HACEIP) developed and implemented Asthma Grand Rounds in partnership with its Asthma Coalition. These workshops, presented by clinicians and asthma champions, are directed toward clinicians and have included topics such as Public Charge and Impact to Health Care Access, the Pediatric Asthma Initiative: Creating Asthma Friendly Environments, and Promoting Access to Guidelines-based Care for Children with Asthma. The HACEIP also worked to provide continuing medical education and continuing nursing education credits to attendees to increase participation. Since 2019, HACEIP has conducted 12 workshops, which were attended by 114 healthcare providers.
The HACEIP, in partnership with Rice University, developed an asthma dashboard using asthma syndromic surveillance data. This city-wide asthma dashboard, which features an interactive map illustrating asthma emergency department visits by zip code, allows HACEIP to track metrics highlighting the burden of asthma in Houston and to monitor trends in these indicators over time. The dashboard contains modules that stratify emergency department (ED) visit data by demographic and temporal characteristics. The HACEIP incorporated results from a community asthma resource survey into the dashboard to assess alignment of programmatic and partner activities with distribution of burden across the city. This allows HACEIP to highlight areas where there is a high asthma burden and a lack of resources or services available to meet the needs of the community. Once launched, Houstonians with asthma, their caregivers, academia, healthcare providers, healthcare workers, and community leaders can utilize the dashboard to monitor trends, address environmental challenges, improve/add resources in the community lacking resource, and address disparities.
The HACEIP partners with and provides support to the Houston Health Department (HHD) Environmental Mobile Unit (EMU) project. The goal of this project is to improve health outcomes in children living in Houston neighborhoods with a high risk of exposure to environmental health hazards and barriers to disease prevention, management, or care. The EMU project partners with the Houston Independent School District (HISD) to provide asthma self-management education to students and their families using an evidence-based curriculum developed by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation. The curriculum consists of six modules covered by the HISD nurse, with assistance from the HHD community health worker (CHW). Additionally, the CHW conducts home visits for trigger reduction for participating caregivers. Since implementation of this program in 2019 with ten HISD schools, the EMU project has reached 198 children, and 274 home visits were conducted with caregivers. The EMU project also observed an increase in student's Asthma Control Test scores. When comparing pre- and post-test scores of students and families, all participants (100%) demonstrated an increase in asthma knowledge after completing the program.
The HACEIP, in partnership with the Texas Department of State Health Services, Region 6, and the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, provided asthma self-management education and Healthy Homes training to 123 people with asthma, caregivers, and CHWs.
What the data shows
2019
122,195 Adults with asthma
23,990 Children with asthma
In 2019, a total of 122,195 adults (7.0% of the adult population) and 23,990 children ages 0–17 years (4.2%) had asthma.
2019
11,344 ED visits
1,509 Hospitalizations
In 2019, there were 11,344 emergency department (ED) visits and 1,509 hospitalizations due to asthma.
Resources
EXHALE: Strategies to Help People with Asthma Breathe Easier
Controlling Childhood Asthma and Reducing Emergencies