Resources
Page last reviewed: October 18, 2023
Houston Asthma Prevention and Control
Our mission is to reduce the burden of asthma for all by engaging in scholarly research, providing leadership at the city level to support asthma-friendly policies and working in partnership to bring community-based interventions that reduce the negative health impacts for individuals struggling with asthma today, especially children.
Community-Based Asthma Initiatives
- Houston Asthma Coalition and Environmental Mobile Unit: The Houston Asthma Coalition is a network of medical providers, public health specialists, environmental health advocates, educators, parents, and community members with a commitment to reducing the burden of asthma across Greater Houston and Texas.
- Hurricane COAG Grant: In 2018, the Houston Health Department received a Hurricane CoAg grant from the CDC to undertake surveillance of children with asthma who lived in neighborhoods flooded by Hurricane Harvey. Through this grant, the Bureau of Community and Children's Environmental Health was able to identify children who had been admitted to an emergency room due to an asthma attack, conduct a phone survey with caregivers of these same children, and analyze the data to quantify the specific experience of these families in relation to their child’s asthma. The goal of this project is to inform future targeted interventions.
- Pediatric Asthma Treatment in the Home Stretch (PATHS)
- Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP)
Data and Publications
- Houston Asthma Burden Report — The purpose of the Houston Asthma Burden Report is to provide a snapshot into the current burden of asthma in the City of Houston, and to highlight specific populations that bear a disproportionate amount of the asthma burden. The findings presented in this report may serve to guide programmatic activities, target high-burden populations and regions for interventions that will reduce observed disparities, and inform decision-makers. The program will continue to update the report annually as more years of data become available.
- Houston Asthma Burden Report (brief) — The Houston Asthma Burden Report (brief) serves to summarize and highlight the key points from the larger report, for easier reading.
- Strategic Asthma Plan: City of Houston 2019-2024 — This strategic plan is organized around five areas of focus that address the unique challenges facing Houston regarding asthma control. Each one outlines a rationale for its inclusion with objectives, strategies, and suggested measures. Each are of focus can potentially be tackled independently but also intersects with other topics.
- Raun LH, Campos LA, Stevenson E, Ensor KB, Johnson G, Persse D. Analyzing Who, When, and Where: Data for Better Targeting of Resources for School-Based Asthma Interventions. Journal of School Health (2017)
- Raun LH, Ensor KB, Campos L, Persse D. Factors affecting ambulance utilization for asthma attack treatment: understanding where to target interventions. Public Health. (2015)
- Raun LH, Ensor KB, Persse D. Using community level strategies to reduce asthma attacks triggered by outdoor air pollution: a case crossover analysis. Environmental Health. (2014)