Improving Pediatric Asthma Care in the District of Columbia
IMPACT DC is a pediatric asthma care, research, advocacy, and education project based in the Center for Clinical and Community Research and the Division of Emergency Medicine (ED) at Children's National. We conduct studies and design programs to improve asthma care and outcomes for children in the Washington, DC, region and nationally.
IMPACT DC is the proud recipient of a 2006 National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and was recognized by the 2007 Asthma Health Outcomes Project.
Asthma Care
The IMPACT DC Asthma Clinic is the heart of the program. The Clinic sees children who have recently been to the ED or hospitalized for an asthma flare, or who are generally having trouble controlling their asthma. Clinic staff provides intensive individualized education on the disease, proper medication and device use, and helps families identify and reduce exposure to their child’s asthma triggers. Every child also receives a detailed medical consultation and coordination of care with the primary care provider, school nurse, and others involved in the child’s asthma care. For more information about the Clinic program, visit Our Program.
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Research/Surveillance
IMPACT DC serves as one of eight sites of the Inner City Asthma Consortium (ICAC), which studies immune-based asthma therapies in children and young adults across the country and is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The team also collaborates with the Center for Genetic Medicine Research, the Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health, and other investigators from the hospital and community.
Descriptions of IMPACT DC’s research projects and publications.
In addition, IMPACT DC has been performing ongoing surveillance of pediatric asthma visits to EDs and hospitalizations within the District of Columbia since 2001. A full report of this data from 2002-2009 is available.
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Advocacy/Education
IMPACT DC staff is active throughout the year in community outreach, providing information through health fairs, school-based programming, and other educational and advocacy events. For more information on these activities, visit our Outreach section.
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History
IMPACT DC was founded in the fall of 2001 with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to track the epidemic of pediatric ED visits for acute asthma exacerbations and to design and implement a program to address the problem in the District of Columbia. These efforts culminated in the creation of the IMPACT DC Asthma Clinic, which has been operating continuously since 2002.
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