Empowering and educating high-prevalence Chicago communities on asthma: A student-engaged media-based participatory research team

Rationale:

Asthma is a problem of epidemic proportions in Chicago with childhood prevalence and mortality rates above the national average.  The objective of this study was to partner with adolescents to improve asthma management and increase community asthma knowledge and support.

Methods: Middle School students with asthma (N=12) were recruited to engage in a 13-week program grounded in CBPR principles.  Students were given mini tablets to investigate socio-environmental factors influencing their asthma by recording video PSAs to educate their communities and implementing a targeted community intervention.

Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney and paired t-tests were used to analyze changes in student and caregiver asthma knowledge, self-efficacy, empowerment, quality of life, symptom frequency, severity, and adherence to management practices pre-/post program implementation.

Results: Students identified community problems including pollution, trigger exposure, and automobile idling. Participants showed significant improvement in self-efficacy and empowerment scores on the Asthma Belief Survey (p=0.03) and the Sociopolitical Control Scale (p=0.033). Caregivers demonstrated significant improvement in quality of life (p=0.006) and asthma knowledge scores (p=0.006) and increased use of peak flow meters (p=0.001), spacers (p=0.046), and asthma action plans (p=0.003). Students presented the videos to peers and caregivers and posted them to a website to disseminate results to the community.

 

Conclusion: Utilizing CBPR principles involves students in many aspects of the research process and allows students to actively take control of their asthma. Photovoice allows a novel way for students to investigate how their unique communities affect their lives and to communicate information to the larger community.