1. Strengths, Challenges, and Strategies of the Coalition Approach
Welcome to the panel
Introduce myself – Planning committee for the conference, AAA TA Director
Honor to be sharing the panel with individuals from around the country who are conducting field-level efforts to improve the lives of children with asthma
Moderator:
Amy R. Friedman, MPH
Technical Assistance Director, Allies Against Asthma

2. $$$ Asthma Coalitions Complexity 16
In recent years coalitions have flourished as a mechanism to address complex health issues, including asthma.
In recent years both public and private funding sources (including CDC, NHLBI, and RWJF) have made funds available for asthma coalitions.
Now estimate more than 200 asthma coalitions across the country.
$$$ 16

3. A national demonstration program to support community-based coalitions to develop, implement and sustain comprehensive asthma management programs.
Supports coalition and community-based efforts to develop comprehensive efforts to address pediatric asthma.
Funded by the RWJF with Direction and TA provided by Univ of MI under Dr. Noreen Clark.
Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

4. ALLIES AGAINST ASTHMA Coalition Grantees
King County
Asthma Forum
Fight Asthma Milwaukee
Philadelphia Allies
Against Asthma
The DC
Asthma
Coalition
Provides funding for 7 coalitions around the country.
Each coalition was awarded a grant for one year of planning and three years of implementation.
Implementation grants are approximately $450,00 each implementation year to support the coalition, its targeted activities and evaluation.
Consortium for
Infant & Child
Health (CINCH)
Long Beach
Alliance for
Children
with Asthma
Alianza Contra el
Asma Pediatrica
en Puerto Rico

5. Integrating clinical, environmental, and community support systems
Examples:
Patient/family education at homes, schools, clinics
Provider education
Education of school children and personnel
Media Campaigns
Home and school environmental remediation
Standardized protocols
Case management/Care Coordination
Each AAA coalition went through an independent planning process to identify priorities for intervention.
Don’t want to spend time talking in detail about each coalition’s activities – refer to handout, but there are some generalizations:
Although each coalition’s approach is unique, there are some similarities across sites.
All are conducting patient/family education at homes, schools and/or in clinics.
All are undertaking some form of provider education
All are working with schools to educate children and/or personnel
All are conducting some form of media campaign to educate the general public
All are addressing indoor environmental conditions in homes and/or schools
Most are developing standardized protocols (ex: asthma action plans) within or across systems
And all are conducting some form of case management/care coordination
Integrating clinical, environmental, and community support systems

6. Benefit
Challenge
We wanted to provide sort of “lessons from the field” about the AAA coalition’s joint experiences. Wanted to divide to talk about the strengths of coalition work as well as the challenges.
As we worked together to prepare for this, we realized that one cannot divide the benefits of coalition work from the challenges. For as in anything, one would not take on a challenge unless there was a significant benefit.
Instead, we identified 8 major themes that seemed to resonate among all coalitions, and asked individuals to give specific details about both the benefit and challenges their coalition has had on these themes.

7. Major Themes Communication, Coordination, and Collaboration
Data sharing/access
Standardization
Raising Awareness/Increasing Impact
Service Integration
Sustainability
Community Involvement
Synergy
Communication, Coordination and Collaboration: Bringing partners together to share information, coordinate efforts, and work together.
Data sharing/access: Sharing data ACROSS systems
Standardization: Working within and among systems to standardize the way asthma is managed (including protocols, documents, referral systems)
Raising Awareness/Increasing Impact: Placing widespread emphasis on efforts to address asthma
Service Integration: Developing seamless approach to asthma management among systems
Sustainability: Ensuring efforts to address asthma receive continued support
Community Involvement: Ensuring individuals with asthma and their surrounding community members (including family) have significant input in the process
Synergy: ???

8. Restructured the panel
All will have 10 minutes and then open for questions.
Introduce speakers