Women of Color and Asthma Control

Research and practice efforts in asthma continue to ignore one of the most vulnerable subgroups of Americans: minority women.  Although among adults asthma predominates in women, researchers at the Center for Managing Chronic Disease could find no trials that have assessed the efficacy of an intervention to enhance how African American women manage the condition.   Furthermore, since the burden of asthma continues to be felt more keenly in the African American community; creative, culturally appropriate approaches are needed to reach and assist women in that community to reduce the impact of the disease on them and on the health care system. 

The Women of Color and Asthma Control project is a randomized controlled trial to evaluate an innovative intervention in 420 African American women with asthma. It will be the first to use a highly tailored telephone counseling approach to address both specific cultural factors affecting asthma and the influence of female sex and gender on asthma control.

This study is funded by a grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. For more information about this project, please contact Lara Thomas at ljthomas@umich.edu or through our toll-free number 877-312-3312.