Home Visits are Needed to Address Asthma Health Disparities in Adults

Publication date: Available online 21 October 2016
Source:Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Author(s): Tyra Bryant-Stephens, Shakira Reed-Wells, Maryori Canales, Luzmercy Perez, A. Russell Localio, Andrea J. Apter
Research on asthma frequently recruits patients from clinics because the ready pool of patients leads to easy access to patients in office waiting areas, emergency departments, or hospital wards. Patients with other chronic conditions, and with mobility problems, face exposures at home that are not easily identified at the clinic. In this paper we describe the perspective of the community health workers and challenges they encountered when making home visits while implementing a research intervention in a cohort of low-income, minority patients. From their observations, poor housing, often the result of poverty and lack of social resources, is the real elephant in the chronic asthma room. To achieve a goal of reduced asthma morbidity and mortality will require a first-hand understanding of the real-world social and economic barriers to optimal asthma management and the solutions to those barriers.



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