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The Asthma Linking Project: community‐based education and support for asthma in a culturally and linguistically diverse population
Author(s) -
O'Neill Cas,
Lowe Gill,
Davey Judy,
Spicer Maureen
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
health promotion journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 2201-1617
pISSN - 1036-1073
DOI - 10.1071/he02220
Subject(s) - population health , asthma , medicine , public health , community health , health economics , population , family medicine , medical education , nursing , environmental health , immunology
Issue addressed The effectiveness of community‐based education and support for children from diverse cultural backgrounds with asthma in the City of Yarra (an inner‐urban local government area of Melbourne). Methods Parents and children were interviewed using a 54‐item questionnaire covering demographic, clinical and lifestyle information. An individualised program of education and support was then created with each family. Families were interviewed again at six and 12 months, using the same questionnaire, to evaluate the efficacy of this education and support model. Results The results showed a statistically significant improvement in 20 variables, including the number of unplanned hospital admissions for each child, school and parental work absences due to the child's asthma, adherence to treatment, prevalence of asthma symptoms and a range of quality‐of‐life issues. Conclusions Community‐based education and support for asthma within a culturally diverse community offers significant benefits to children and their parents, as well as decreasing hospital admissions. So what? This preventative model of community‐based education and support is likely to be relevant for other medical conditions and in other culturally and linguistically diverse populations.