Reducing the geographic and racial disparities of asthma among African American public housing residents: Integrating a Community Health Worker intervention into a large public housing organization to empower residents

Profound disparities related to asthma morbidity persist among African Americans living in urban areas, particularly public housing. African Americans continue to be more likely to visit the Emergency Department (ED) and be hospitalized for asthma, as well as suffer a disproportionate burden of asthma symptoms compared to Caucasians. To combat these disparities, the Sinai Urban Health Institute partnered with the Chicago Housing Authority to implement its Community Health Worker (CHW) asthma and healthy homes intervention in six public housing developments. This innovative partnership is one of the first of its kind across the country. The intervention educated families to better manage asthma medically, while also addressing the presence of asthma triggers in the home. Data will be presented on the 115 adults and children that completed the intervention, 94% of whom are African American. Children saw an 83% decrease in ED visits, while adults saw a 44% decrease.  Daytime asthma symptoms were reduced from 4.1 in the past two weeks to 0.8 among children and from 5.0 to 2.0 among adults.  Quality of life scores for both adults and caregivers of children significantly increased by 0.9 and 0.7 point respectively, indicating clinical improvement.  This CHW model not only meets children and adults where they live, but effectively bridges the gap between them and the health care system. Partnering with a large public housing organization to integrate a CHW asthma and healthy homes intervention was successful at reducing the disproportionate burden of asthma among African Americans living in Chicago’s public housing.