An asthma public awareness campaign promotes key quality of life measures

Asthma is the leading cause of school absence and emergency department visits for Boston childrn. Within Boston, hospitalization rates vary significantly by race and ethnicity. In Boston, 2005, Black children, under five, had six times the number of asthma hospitalizations as White children. Latino children had over double the number as White children of that age group. Certain neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted. The low-income, predominantly Black neighborhood of Roxbury has twice the asthma hospitalization rate as Boston overall. In 2004, WGBH, New England's public television channel, approached the Boston Public Health Commission, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston Children's Museum and the Boston Public Libraries to initiate a public awareness campaign on asthma built around the children's show, ARTHUR. Out of this collaboration grew a bilingual campaign, focusing on Boston's neighborhoods most affected by asthma. Campaign materials are available in English and Spanish and messages are reinforced in multiple mediums including a traveling play, music video, billboards, and books. The campaign is designed to increase expectations on key quality of life measures for people with asthma regarding sleep, work or school and physical activity and provides information and resources to support improved quality of life. Focus groups of families and clinicians informed campaign themes, messages and outreach strategies. The campaign is intended to reach some 30,000 Boston parents, caregivers, educators, and children. Evaluative data will inform a statewide campaign to require insurance coverage for patient education on asthma management and may lead to expansion of the campaign statewide.