Volume 1, Issue 2

DC Asthma Partnership

E-Newsletter

DC Asthma Partnership

Recognizes

the Importance of Social

Marketing

Have you seen the new

DCAP Website?

Have you “Liked Us” on

Facebook?

Did you know you can

post your “tweet” to our

site?

Breathe DC Helps Public

Housing Residents Be-

come Smoke Free

2

DC CAN Partners with

WPGC to Promote

Asthma Awareness

2

Who’s Behind the DCAP

Social Media Campaign?

2

American Lung Association

Offers Prep Course for

AE-C

3

DCAP Survey—Help

Strengthen Partnership

4

Save the Date! 4

Inside this issue:

Researchers from the

George Washington Uni-

versity, School of Public

Health and Health Ser-

vices, School of Medicine

and School of Law out-

line the challenges of

collecting data on chil-

dren with asthma in a

recently released policy

brief entitled Addressing

the Challenges of Re-

porting on Childhood

Asthma in a Changing

Health Care System:

Building Better Evi-

dence for High Perform-

ance. The publication

provides an overview of

pediatric asthma data

collection processes in

the United States, in-

cluding types of data

and specific asthma in-

dicators.

The authors detail sev-

eral national data sets

that relate directly to

pediatric asthma sur-

veillance. One of the

datasets is the annual

Behavioral Risk Factor

Surveillance System

(BRFSS) and its related

Asthma Callback Sur-

vey, which collects data

on emerging health

problems, track health

objectives, trends and

prevalence, behaviors

that lead to premature

morbidity and mortality.

The National Asthma

Study (NAS), conducted

in 2003-2004, provides

data about prevalence,

health and health care

experiences of children

with asthma primarily

at a national level. A

third dataset, the Na-

tional Children's Study

compiles data on envi-

ronmental effects on

health, including air,

water, diet, sound, fam-

ily dynamics, commu-

nity and cultural influ-

ences, and genetics on

the growth, develop-

ment, and health of chil-

dren. (continued on

page 3)

Childhood Asthma Surveillance Presents

Challenges By LaVerne Jones, DC DOH, DC CAN

Summer 2011

Asthma Action Plans Become More Provider Friendly Asthma Action Plans

(AAP) are ready and be-

ing distributed all over

the District. The content

of the AAP is basically

the same. Some graphics

were repositioned to allow

for a patient label to be

affixed to the form if

needed.

Also, an organization can

reprint the form using

their own logo in the up-

per right hand corner.

The District of Columbia

Department of Health

(DC DOH), Asthma Con-

trol Program, DC Control

Asthma Now (DC CAN) is

grateful to the many cli-

nicians at Children’s Na-

tional Medical Center

who were instrumental in

the re-design of the form.

The revised AAP form

can be download from

the DC Asthma Partner-

ship (DCAP) website.

For more information on

printing the form, please

contact Edwina Davis,

Asthma Program Man-

ager at 202-442-8113 or

Edwina.Davis@dc.gov.

lively discussions of challenges

and successes related to asthma.

As you may know, DC CAN has

launched a social marketing cam-

paign on Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign can be found on

Facebook by visiting

www.facebook.com/dcasthma and

on Twitter@dcasthma. The gen-

eral public can find information, g

et links to articles and join groups

on Facebook to discuss Asthma

and caring for asthma symptoms.

For the next few months DC CAN

will sponsor local radio DJ Big

Tigger and his twitter ―question of

the day‖ for his listeners. Tigger

can be heard weekly on WPGC

95.5 from 6:00 – 10:00 am. The

goal of the social media campaign

is to engage followers and build a

community that shares informa-

tion, best practices, and allows for

It has long been common knowl-

edge that smoking and second-

hand smoke exacerbate asthma

and other respiratory diseases.

Yet to date, only about 140 public

housing developments across the

United States (about 4%) have

reported that they have voluntar-

ily banned smoking in the units

they manage.

A resident who smokes in a single

unit within a multiunit residen-

tial building puts the residents of

the other units at risk. Given

that tobacco smoke can move

along air ducts, through cracks in

the walls and floors, through ele-

vator shafts, and along plumbing

and electrical lines, the smoke

affects other residents in their

units. ―One of our main objectives

is to lessen the dreadful impact of

secondhand smoke, especially for

children with asthma, who are

prone to asthma attacks when

exposed to smoking‖ says Charles

Debnam, Deputy Director for

Health Education Services at

Breathe DC.

In order to address the smoking,

and secondhand smoking issues,

Breathe DC is currently working

with residents from four DC Pub-

lic Housing developments, the DC

City Wide Advisory Board, DC

Housing Authority, regional part-

ners, and the DC Department of

Health. This health promotion

and prevention effort reaches out

to public housing residents who

smoke and educates them on the

dangers that smoking poses on

their own lives as well as the peo-

ple around them. (continued on

page 3)

dia outlets such as Facebook and

Twitter are key aspects of reaching

the public and disseminating infor-

mation. In addition the campaign

will highlight information and as-

pects of asthma management in

the District of Columbia. Alston

Marketing Group was founded in

2002 and is a woman owned busi-

DC DOH has partnered with local

marketing firm Alston Marketing

Group to develop a social media

campaign to inform residents on

how to manage and treat their

asthma. The campaign was

launched in August 2011 and will

feature local residents and chil-

dren in the campaign. Social me-

ness headquartered in Washing-

ton, DC.

DC CAN Partners with WPGC To Promote Asthma Awareness

Breathe DC Helps Public Housing Residents to Become Smoke

Free By Daniel Weisshaar, Breathe DC at UMC

Who’s Behind the DCAP Social Media Campaign?

PAGE 2 DC ASTHMA PARTNERSHIP VOLUME 1, I SSUE 2

The National Health Interview

Study (NHIS) is a survey with a

broad range of health topics,

health status, insurance status,

health care access, range of na-

tional health goals. Each of these

and others serve as the founda-

tion for childhood asthma surveil-

lance in the nation.

The results of the research indi-

cate what data indicators are re-

ported across the country. Life-

time and current prevalence, a

measure of what proportion of

children currently have asthma, is

provided by a majority of US

states and territories. Another

important measure of asthma out-

comes is heath care utilization,

including emergency department

and inpatient hospital utilization;

like prevalence, most US states

and territories report on this

measure. Fewer states report on

disease management indicators

including use of asthma action

plans and asthma education. Cost

coverage data, a measure of grow-

ing importance in the current eco-

nomic climate, is reported by less

than one quarter of the states.

Each of these measures, along

with other key indicators, give

insight into the state of asthma

and asthma care in the nation.

To read the full publication, con-

nect to this link: http://

www.mcanonline.org/pdf/

AsthmaDataBrief.pdf

The Asthma Educator Institute is a

two-day preparatory course for those

qualified to take the National Asthma

Educator Certification Board

(NAECB) examination. The American

Lung Association Asthma Educator

Institute was developed in January of

2003 and was recently updated to

reflect the National Asthma Educa-

tion and Prevention Program Expert

Panel Report 3: Guidelines for the

The University of Maryland Chil-

dren’s Hospital Joint Commission

Pediatric Asthma Center of Excel-

lence and Carroll Hospital Center—

Westminster Maryland are sponsor-

ing a Guidelines Based Hands-On

Asthma Training on October 21-22,

2011 from 8 am-5 pm (both days) at

the University of Maryland Medical

Center located at 22 S. Green

Street, Baltimore, MD 21201.

Diagnosis and Management of

Asthma. Registration is $250.00

For more information, contact Gabrielle

Steele, Manager, Programs and Volun-

teers American Lung Association—

Serving DC, MD, VA, and NC at 910-

790-2141 or gsteele@lungusa.org.

Breathe DC Helps Public Housing Residents to Become Smoke

Free (continued from page 2)

Childhood Asthma Surveillance (continued from page 1)

American Lung Association Offers Preparatory Course for AE-C

diet,, exercise, and avoiding smok-

ing triggers.

Along with helping residents to quit

smoking Breathe DC is also focus-

ing on empowering residents to

work together as a community to

educate the Housing Authority to

implement policies around smoke

free public housing developments.

Through active community engage-

ment and healthy lifestyles educa-

tion, enforcement will be less of a

challenge after the public housing

developments pass new smoke free

policies.

For more information contact

Daniel Weisshaar at 202-574-7033

or daniel@breathedc.org

Starting with a focused outreach

effort executed by leaders and

neighbors within the participating

public housing developments,

Breathe DC is implementing free 4

week 1 hour workshops that include

the promotion of the

1-800-QUITNOW hotline and has

sessions centered around creating a

new healthy lifestyle including

PAGE 3 DC ASTHMA PARTNERSHIP VOLUME 1, I SSUE 2

ship members have of the DC

Control Asthma Now Program's

Strategic Plan.

This survey is the first step in

identifying the strengths and op-

portunities for improvement of

our partnership and building the

foundation to fill any identified

gaps and provide the best types of

services and quality care to Dis-

trict resident affected by asthma.

During the month of September,

the survey will be sent to all

DCAP members. We ask that you

take a few minutes (approximately

10) to complete the survey. Your

honest input is needed. Responses

are anonymous and only aggregate

In an effort to assess the strength

of the District of Columbia

Asthma Partnership, the DC Con-

trol Asthma Now State Asthma

Program is implementing a two

year evaluation initiative to as-

sess specific components of the DC

Asthma Partnership. These com-

ponents include:

1) The organization of the part-

nership,

2) The perceived benefits to being

a partner,

3) The efficiency of communica-

tion within the partnership,

4) Barriers to full participation in

partnership initiatives and activi-

ties, and

5) The knowledge that partner-

data will be shared in the data

report.

If you have any questions, please

feel free to contact Georgia A.

Henry, the DC CAN Program

Evaluator at

georgia.henry@dc.gov

or 202-442-9357.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/

s/DCAP

Take the DCAP Survey—Help Strengthen Our Partnership!

The DC Asthma Partnership (DCAP) is a

public-private partnership. Its mission is to

reduce asthma morbidity and mortality and

to improve the quality of life for residents of

the District of Columbia. The DCAP

includes more than 80 public and private

agency representatives.

Save the Date!

DC CAN Steering Committee Meeting to be held on

September 29, 2011 from 3-5 pm.

Location to be announced.

Other regional American Lung Associa-

tion Events:

Freedom From Smoking® Facilitator

Workshop – September 22 & 23, 2011,

Washington DC

PAGE 4 DC ASTHMA PARTNERSHIP VOLUME 1, I SSUE 2