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Open Airways for Schools (OAS)

An Effective Practice

Description

The American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago (ALAMC) is implementing the American Lung Association's "Open Airways for Schools (OAS)" intervention in seven Latino communities in Chicago. ALAMC is working collaboratively with community-based organizations to identify and train community members to recruit schools and implement OAS. These partners are working toward implementing OAS in more than 40 schools. Effective asthma control can improve quality of life, reduce medical costs, and reduce the number of asthma-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, school and work days missed, days of restricted activity, and deaths each year.

Goal / Mission

The goal of the Open Airways for Schools intervention is to improve asthma control among children in Latino communities in Chicago.

Results / Accomplishments

The "Open Airways for Schools (OAS)" intervention has been shown, along with other positive outcomes, to increase children's self-management skills and self-efficacy as well as children's influence on parental asthma management decision making. Results also showed a decrease in the annual frequency and average duration of self-reported asthma attacks. During one evaluation of the intervention, the number of symptom days decreased by 43% in one year in the intervention group.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago
Primary Contact
American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago
1440 West Washington Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois 60607
(312) 243-2000
http://www.lungusa.org/lung-disease/asthma/in-scho...
Topics
Health / Children's Health
Health / Respiratory Diseases
Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Organization(s)
American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago
Date of publication
2003
Location
Chicago, IL
Target Audience
Children, Teens

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  3. CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Asthma Control: Home-Based Multi-Trigger, Multicomponent Environmental Interventions
  4. Healthy Kids Express - Asthma Program
  5. Physician Asthma Care Education (PACE)
  6. Reducing Environmental Triggers of Asthma

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An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.
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