An $8 million NIH grant will expand community asthma care program led by two Medical School researchers.
To improve asthma care across Rhode Island and beyond, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has awarded $8 million for a new center led by two Rhode Island Hospital-based professors at the Warren Alpert Medical School and Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute.
The center that the grant creates will be one of only four in the country, according to Lifespan, which operates the hospital and announced the award. Work in the center will expand upon earlier pilot research to help determine best practices for improving asthma outcomes among high-risk children with asthma and ensure long-term program sustainability.
“Nationally, we are in need of coordinated systems of asthma care, and this initiative represents a first step in building a sustainable delivery model for evidence-based pediatric asthma interventions,” says Elizabeth McQuaid, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior and of pediatrics (research) and a staff psychologist at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital.
Together with co-principal investigator Daphne Koinis-Mitchell, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior and of pediatrics (research) who is also a staff psychologist at the two hospitals, McQuaid will examine 16 targeted communities. They will evaluate the effectiveness of an integrated system called the Rhode Island Integrated Response Program—created to identify children with asthma living in the most afflicted and high-risk areas—conduct screenings and refer to interventions.
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