PolicyLab

A newly published Pediatrics article demonstrates how pediatric health systems have opportunities to identify key interventions to address social determinants of health at the patient and community levels.

The most common chronic disease of childhood is asthma, and Black and Hispanic children living in low-income, inner-city neighborhoods experience some of the highest rates of asthma morbidity and death. In Philadelphia alone, aging housing stock and high poverty rates create substantial economic barriers to maintaining older homes which can contribute to structural problems in housing associated with asthma triggers.

Building on Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) longstanding Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP)—a health system-led intervention to directly address disparities in asthma-related housing quality—the team later expanded their education and environment mitigation efforts into CAPP+, providing structural repairs to reduce exposure to environmental asthma triggers.  

Working across various departments at CHOP, the team evaluated the implementation and impact of CAPP+, conducting interviews with CAPP+ team members, homeowners enrolled in CAPP+, home repair agencies, and others. They found that parents described improvements in their child’s asthma following home repairs, including fewer asthma symptoms and less hospitalizations and emergency room visits. 

Read the case study here as well as an American Academy of Pediatrics blog post focused on the article here.