Disparities in Asthma Care, Management, and Education Among Children With Asthma.

Health disparities are pervasive in the United States. Health and health care disparities are the differences or gaps in health (eg, life expectancy, morbidity, risk factors, and quality of life) and health care access and quality between segments of the United States population as related to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (eg, income, education). Multiple factors are associated with such disparities in asthma management and education.

Home-based family intervention for low-income children with asthma: a randomized controlled pilot study.

Low-income African American children have disproportionately higher asthma morbidity and mortality. Education alone may not address barriers to asthma management due to psychosocial stress. This study evaluated the efficacy of a home-based family intervention integrating asthma education and strategies to address stress using a community-based participatory research model.

Validity of the Family Asthma Management System Scale with an urban African-American sample.

Objective: To examine the reliability and validity of the Family Asthma Management System Scale for low-income African-American children with poor asthma control and caregivers under stress. The FAMSS assesses eight aspects of asthma management from a family systems perspective.

Methods: Forty-three children, ages 8-13, and caregivers were interviewed with the FAMSS; caregivers completed measures of primary care quality, family functioning, parenting stress, and psychological distress.

Barriers to asthma management among urban families: caregiver and child perspectives.

Objective: Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. Those particularly affected are young, poor, African American children. Moreover, rates of emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and mortality are substantially higher for black children.

Evaluating a residential asthma camp program and ways to increase physical activity.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an educational asthma camp program emphasizing self-management skills. The camp's key program components were medical supervision, autonomy, peer support, and health education. Measurement of asthma knowledge gains and overall camp experience were reported.

Poliovirus-induced intracellular alkalinization involves a proton ATPase and protein phosphorylation.

We reported previously that poliovirus infection induces alkalinization in HeLa cells and that an alkaline intracellular pH (pHi) promoted viral replication. Additional experiments were carried out to understand the underlying mechanism. Virus-infected or control monolayer cultures were incubated with nominally bicarbonate-free Eagle's minimal essential medium (MEM) buffered with N-2-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N-3-ethanesulfonic acid (HEPES), and immediately following preincubations, changes in pHi were monitored via benzoic acid uptake around 2 h postinfection.

Evidence for poliovirus-induced cytoplasmic alkalinization in HeLa cells.

During the early period after poliovirus infection of HeLa cells, cellular Na+/K+ ATPase activity is transiently activated. We investigated the possibility that Na+/K+ ATPase activation is a consequence of Na+/H+ antiporter activation. Increased uptake of the weak organic acid 5,5-dimethyloxazolidine-2,4-dione by infected cells around 2 h after infection suggested cytoplasmic alkalinization equivalent to pH 7.