Reducing Asthma Disparities by Addressing Environmental Inequities

Abstract

Regional Asthma Management and Prevention describes its collaborative approach to address a social determinant of health--air quality--and the associated inequities that have led to asthma disparities impacting African American and Latino communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The strategies, aimed at decreasing diesel pollution in disproportionately impacted communities, span the levels of the socioecological model, with an emphasis on policy outcomes. Regional Asthma Management and Prevention describes how this work fits within a larger comprehensive approach to address asthma disparities encompassing several components, ranging from clinical management to environmental protection.

Community Asthma Initiative to Improve Health Outcomes and Reduce Disparities Among Children with Asthma

“…Asthma can be managed effectively when children and families receive asthma education, understand medications, live in healthy housing, and have a system of coordinated care in place (16,17). Multiple social determinants of health contribute to asthma disparities: low household income; environmental inequities (e.g., outdoor air pollution and substandard housing) and living in poor communities (18,19); exposure to pests, mold, air pollution (including secondhand smoke); and high levels of stress due to community violence (20). Major barriers to health care access in poor communities include lack of adequate health insurance coverage, overwhelmed clinics, shortages of culturally and linguistically competent providers, and low health literacy (21)(22)(23)(24).…”