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California Asthma Partners webinar series continued with our latest edition: Five New Resources for Back-to-School with Asthma on Sep 09, 2015 at 3:00 PM PDT.  Watch the archived webinar to learn how five new and innovative asthma management tools can help students breathe easier this school year. Presenters from the California School Environmental Health and Asthma Collaborative (SEHAC), and the national office of the American Lung Association shared resources in multiple formats, including:

1. Asthma Quick Take Video: How to manage an asthma episode in school (English & Spanish)
2. Downloadable resources to help manage asthma in schools
3. Interactive self-carry and assessment tool
4. New Issue Brief: Access to asthma medications in schools
5. Asthma Basics: a free online learning module for school personnel and parents

Speakers:
Scott Kessler | Programs Manager, Schools & Child Care, California Breathing and SEHAC

Barbara Kaplan, M.P.H., C.H.E.S. | Director, Asthma Education
American Lung Association National Office www.lung.org/asthma

Who should watch? School nurses and staff that come in contact with students with asthma (coaches, teachers, administrative and afterschool staff), asthma and health educators working with parents and guardians of children with asthma, and anyone wanting to learn more about these free resources. 

In this plan, we propose to build on the strengths and lessons learned from past and existing federal asthma programs, combine efforts among federal programs at the community level, and develop collaborative strategies to fill knowledge gaps within existing resources. With clear evidence of broad commitment to reducing health disparities from federal, state, and local partners, the timing is right for this Coordinated Federal Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Asthma Disparities (Action Plan) to accelerate actions that will reduce asthma disparities. The Action Plan presents a framework to maximize the use of our existing federal resources for addressing this major public health challenge during the next three to five years. 

The Action Plan is founded on the following principles, which we believe offer the best foundation for effective and feasible federal efforts to address asthma disparities: 

• Collaboration across federal agencies, other levels of government, and community partners.
• Utilizing existing federal resources and optimizing their impact through synergies.
• Emphasizing activities that address the preventable factors that impact asthma disparities. 

While some interventions have been successful in improving the care of children with asthma, disparities in asthma outcomes persist. In 2012, after representatives from nearly 20 Federal organizations reviewed prior, available, and projected efforts to reduce disparities in asthma, they created a Coordinated Federal Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Asthma Disparities (http://www.epa.gov/childrenstaskforce/federal_asthma_disparities_action_plan.pdf ), concluding that multiple risk factors contribute to the persistence of disparities. The Action Plan, a key activity of the President’s Task Force on Children’s Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks, advises that substantial progress in reducing disparities will require research to design, execute and evaluate implementation programs that maximize synergies among all key sectors to create a system of care that focuses on children most in need and reaches them where they live, learn and play.

This FOA will support research that addresses the Federal Coordinated Action Plan. Investigators who participate in this Cooperative Agreement must have collaborations within their communities to create an Asthma Care Implementation Program (ACIP) that integrates interventions from at least four different sectors that contribute to the care of children with asthma: medical care, families, home environment, and the community. For the purposes of this FOA, community refers to organizations/institutions whose primary purpose is not medical care (e.g., school, library). The interventions must have demonstrated efficacy based on prior research and be well integrated. Nevertheless the design and analysis plan for the study must account for the relative contributions of the components of care that impact asthma outcomes as well as the importance of specific components of the process of implementation. By evaluating the implementation process in the ACIP, investigators should define the determinants of implementation outcomes that might be modified, if needed, to meet other communities' needs. The metrics for the implementation process that will be used by all ACIPs that participate in this Cooperative Agreement will be determined by a Steering Committee composed of the Program Directors/Principal Investigators PD(s)/PI(s). The Steering Committee will also create a report of Best Practices that incorporates the results of their research with respect to implementation and the potential for dissemination in other settings.

To ensure the initial design of the ACIP addresses the needs of relevant stakeholders, investigators must have performed a recent (within 24 months prior to the receipt date) formal community needs assessment either through an NHLBI funding opportunity (RFA-HL-15-028 ; U34) or any other alternative source of support. Because this FOA will support research to address disparities in asthma outcomes, investigators' ability to identify and engage children at highest risk for poor asthma outcomes and follow them will be essential. Given the importance of engaging collaborators to make the multi-sector interventions possible, investigators must also have obtained a commitment of resources (including in-kind resources) from each of the four sectors who will participate in the ACIP. It is anticipated that the commitments of the collaborators may affect the sustainability of the program which will also be evaluated within this FOA.

- See more at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HL-17-001.html#sthash.y...