University

Allies Against Asthma (Allies) was a national initiative to improve asthma control for children and adolescents. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Center for Managing Chronic Disease, University of Michigan, Allies supported seven community-based coalitions and their efforts to improve the way asthma is managed in their communities and provides resources and tools to support other asthma coalitions and programs throughout the United States. 

The Allies initiative has closed, but evaluation activities of the impact of the coalitions' work continues at the Center for Managing Chronic Disease.  Medicaid health care utilization data will be analyzed over the next few years, and findings will be posted as they become available.

UCSF Fresno is a medical education program located in Fresno, CA and is part of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. UCSF Fresno has an active asthma research program, including epidemiological studies of air pollution and asthma, clinical trials for new asthma medications, translational studies of environmental and genetic factors impacting lung function in asthmatics, community-based studies of asthma prevalence, severity and management in the school setting, and studies of cultural and ethnic factors on asthma control.

Asthma is often thought of as a disease that mainly affects children and begins only in childhood, but some reports note that up to 40% of people with asthma had their first attack after age 40. Asthma has been overlooked in the geriatric population and many older adults go undiagnosed or under treated for their asthma. Additionally, older adults have the highest asthma morality rate of any age group. There is currently little research on optimal treatment, diagnosis, and management of asthma in the older adult population.  As our population ages, it is essential that tailored interventions are conducted to improve outcomes in this population.

The Center for Managing Chronic Disease and Dr. Alan Baptist conducted a series of focus groups to uncover common issues that older adults face in managing their asthma. From these focus groups, a pilot intervention tailored for older adults was developed and will be evaluated through a randomized controlled trial design utilizing an intervention group and a usual care control group. The intervention group will receive the "Older Adults with Asthma" intervention adapted from previous programs developed and successfully implemented by the Center for Managing Chronic Disease. Data will be collected at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months, with a primary outcome of Asthma Quality of Life, and secondary outcomes measuring standard asthma indicators of care along with many of the themes revealed through the focus groups.  The results and lessons learned from the pilot will be used to design a larger randomized controlled study.

For more information on this project, please contact Center Faculty Member, Dr. Alan Baptist at abaptist@med.umich.edu