CHICAGO Collaboration II

Designing a community-wide childhood asthma intervention for high risk neighborhoods in Chicago

CHICAGO (Coordinated Healthcare Interventions for Childhood Asthma Gaps in Outcomes) Collaboration II (U34) is a city-wide collaborative to complete a community needs assessment and develop an evidence-based, multi-sector asthma care model to address pediatric asthma where children live, learn, play and receive medical care for high-risk children in Chicago.

Download the
CHICAGO II Briefing Book

Proven asthma interventions exist, but need to be integrated and sustained. Many evidence-based care strategies have demonstrated the ability to improve asthma, but we remain uncertain about how best to implement and sustain these strategies in settings where children live, learn, play, and receive medical care.

CHICAGO II wants to design a community-level asthma intervention that fits Chicago public schools, local clinics, emergency departments and families. This federally funded effort planned an Asthma Care Implementation Program (ACIP) for children in the west and south regions of Chicago, targeting coordinated asthma care across all four sectors of a community: the families, home environment, schools and medical providers that serve these communities.

You can learn more about our work and findings in our CHICAGO II Briefing Book.

 

Project Background

Asthma can be controlled and children can lead normal lives with medical care, support, and trigger avoidance. Unfortunately, the impact of asthma remains stubbornly high for urban minority children in the U.S. and Chicago is an epicenter for such asthma health disparities.

Many evidence-based care strategies have been shown to improve asthma control. How to best use these strategies in settings where children live, learn, play, and receive medical care has been uncertain.  Caregivers, asthma advocacy groups, health systems, clinicians, community leaders, schools, local and state public health officials, and healthcare technology innovators have been working over the past two decades to address the problem of uncontrolled asthma among children.

One of the initiatives that evolved from these partnerships is the Coordinated Healthcare Interventions for Childhood Asthma Gaps in Outcomes (CHICAGO) Plan, a multi-center clinical effectiveness and implementation trial funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The CHICAGO Collaboration II builds on these partnerships and lessons learned in the trial.

MORE COLLABORATION TO COME

The CHICAGO II succeeded in expanding existing collaborations to develop a four-sector Asthma Care Implementation Program (ACIP) to improve the care of Chicago children with asthma where they live, learn, play and receive medical care. The team has taken this work and is seeking additional federal funding to test and implement the new ACIP outlined in the CHICAGO II briefing book.

As our efforts move into a broader community-wide intervention, we need to expand the number of people at the table. We are all important to the successful care of Chicago’s children with asthma.

Join us in the CHICAGO Plan 3 and help expand our network as we continue our work to test the implementation and effectiveness of this new model of asthma care to improve the care of Chicago children with asthma.

If you are interested in working with us to address pediatric asthma disparities in Chicago contact Erica Salem, Director of Strategy, Programs & Policy, via email at esalem@resphealth.org or by phone at (312) 628-0235.