Online Program

325770
Student Media-Based Asthma Research Team (SMART): A CBPR Photovoice/Videovoice Project in a Chicago Public School


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Jesse Blumenstock, BS, MS candidate, Center for Community Health, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
Marjorie Yarbrough, MPH, Center for Community Health, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
Ashley Dyer, MPH, Center for Community Health, Northwestern Institute for Public Health and Medicine, Chicago, IL
Christopher Warren, BA, PhD Candidate, Center for Healthcare Studies, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, Center for Healthcare Studies, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
Bridget Smith, PhD, Pediatrics, Northwestern University FSM, Chicago, IL
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 collaborate with adolescents to improve asthma management and increase community asthma knowledge and support.

Methods: Middle School students with asthma (n=11) and their caregivers (n=9) were recruited from a middle school with predominantly black students in a high asthma prevalence area to engage in a 34-session program grounded in CBPR principles. Students received mini tablets to investigate socio-environmental factors influencing their asthma using photovoice techniques and recording video PSAs to educate their communities.

Wilcoxon signed-rank and t-tests were used to analyze changes in student, caregiver, and school-peer outcomes including asthma knowledge, self-efficacy, empowerment, quality of life, and asthma control pre-/post-program implementation.

Results: Students identified community factors including outdoor pollution, indoor triggers around home and school, and community assets. Post-program, participants showed significant improvement in emotional support (p=0.003), asthma-related quality of life (p=0.011), and asthma knowledge (p=0.048). Caregivers demonstrated significant improvement in quality of life (p=0.009). Students presented their videos to peers and posted them to a website to disseminate to the community. The school peer-community showed a significant improvement in asthma knowledge (p=.0001).

Conclusion: Utilizing CBPR principles involves students in many aspects of the research process and empowers 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 use their voices to communicate to the larger community.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Chronic disease management and prevention
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
Discuss the benefits of collaborative community based participatory research with schools and students to investigate community specific factors affecting young people with asthma Discuss the ways that CBPR can empower individuals and communities to identify assets and vulnerabilities that affect their health and to create community-specific targeted interventions to improve these factors

Keyword(s): Asthma, Community-Based Research (CBPR)

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Jesse Blumenstock is a Research Project Coordinator at the Center for Community Health at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He coordinates a variety of research projects from epidemiological, clinical, and community-based perspectives focused on asthma, food allergy, and clinical health systems. Jesse studied at UIC’s School of Public Health and is completing his Masters of Science degree in epidemiology.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.