Booklet

The most effective ways to improve your indoor air are to reduce or remove the sources of pollutants and to ventilate with clean outdoor air. In addition, research shows that filtration can be an effective supplement to source control and ventilation. Using a portable air cleaner and/or upgrading the air filter in your furnace or central heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system can help to improve indoor air quality. Portable air cleaners, also known as air purifiers or air sanitizers, are designed to filter the air in a single room or area. Central furnace or HVAC filters are designed to filter air throughout a home. Portable air cleaners and HVAC filters can reduce indoor air pollution; however, they cannot remove all pollutants from the air.

RAMP is pleased to release Leading the Way to Better Breathing: Managed Care Organizations and Asthma Home Visiting Services in California.

Asthma home visiting services are a tried and true method for improving health outcomes, lowering health care utilization costs, improving patient care, and reducing health care disparities. Yet, far too many people with poorly controlled asthma don’t have access to these key interventions.

This easy-to-access document aims to change that.

The purpose of this tool is to support managed care organizations in California – and organizations working with those MCOs – in improving asthma management for MCO members by ensuring the provision of asthma home visiting services.

The document highlights the numerous benefits of asthma home visiting services, from their ability to achieve triple aim goals to supporting quality improvement initiatives to addressing more “upstream” health determinants. The tool also explains an abundant number of opportunities MCOs can take advantage of to make support for asthma home visiting services as easy and as efficient as possible, including some best practice examples from the field.

To access the full tool, as well as individual sections, click here.

When people get sick or develop a disability, they often ask their health care providers, “How did this happen?” The answer could be clear and obvious but many times it is more complicated.  A Story of Health multimedia eBook explores this question and delves into how our environments interact with our genes to influence health across the lifespan. We tell A Story of Health through the lives of fictional characters and their families - Brett, a young boy with asthma; Amelia, a teenager with developmental disabilities; and toddler Stephen, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Each fictional case features the latest scientific research about disease origin and helpful facts about disease prevention. “Although our characters are fictional, the risk factors they face are real,” says Mark Miller MD, MPH, co-author and director of the University of California, San Francisco, Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit.  “Our eBook brings stories of health to life through an interactive format that we believe will engage a wide range of audiences.”