[PA-38] Community Education and Reduced Asthma Hospitalization: A Peer Educator Program
Antonio Garcia, BA, Health Force: Community Preventive Health Institute, Bronx, NY
Purpose: To train peer educators to reduce the impact of asthma in the South Bronx, the borough with New York City's highest rate of childhood asthma hospitalizations.
Methods: Peer educators were intensively trained for 8 weeks (4 days a week) and then delivered a six-session asthma attack prevention course to school children and visited parents at home to educate them in proper asthma care.
Results: Over a four year period (1998 to 2001), the trained asthma peer educators taught the six-session asthma attack prevention course to 503 grade school children and made 716 home-visits to parents.
Outcomes: For 81 children we were able to follow for at least three months after course completion, and who received a minimum of two home visits, asthma hospitalizations dropped from 15 in the six months before program entry to 0 during program participation and emergency room visits dropped from 139 to 4.
Health Force: Community Preventive Health Institute is New York City's largest peer educator-based health education and disease prevention program. This work was supported by funding from the HSS Office of Minority Health.
