What?

The Asthma Management Program aims to reduce emergency department visits and hospitalization due to asthma among Montgomery County Latino children by:

• Empowering Latino families to appropriately self-manage their children with asthma.
• Increasing awareness and utilization of pediatric clinical services.

• Developing culturally and linguistically appropriate asthma management interventions.

Why?

Asthma is a serious public health problem that disproportionately affects poor and minority children. For this reason in 2005 the Latino Health Initiative, with the technical assistance of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, engaged in formative evaluation data collection activities (focus groups, health care provider interviews, literature review) to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices among low-income Montgomery County Latino parents of children with asthma.  Based on this formative evaluation, the LHI designed a culturally and linguistically competent intervention.

How?

The Asthma Management Program provides an intervention with three components:

•  Group sessions.
  • Eight 2-hour education sessions.The sessions are informed by adult and popular education theory and facilitated in Spanish.
• Social support.
  • Provided by a group of trained asthma management coaches (foreign-trained nurses known as “Consedus,” a combination of the words for “counselor” and “educator” in Spanish.)
• Follow-up.
  • Provided between education sessions through individualized follow-up phone calls and a two-hour follow-up session conducted 6 to 9 months after the intervention.

Who?

The target population of the program is low-income Latino parents/caregivers of Latino children 4 to 11 years old diagnosed with asthma and living in Montgomery County.

According to their area of expertise, the Asthma Program Partners provide assistance and support to achieve the goals of the Asthma Management Program.

Community Asthma Advisory Board

Composed of experts in Latino Health and parents of children with asthma, provides guidance to program activities and carries out asthma advocacy efforts.

El Asma y Nuestros Niños - Leaflet (PDF)

El Asma y Nuestros Niños (Newsletter) (PDF)

Latino Asthma Management Program (Updated Fact Sheet) (PDF)