Association between Health Care Utilization with Asthma Control Levels among a Sample of Adult Patients in Puerto Rico.

Objective: Asthma is an important and serious public health problem in Puerto Rico; however, very few studies measuring the association between health care utilization and asthma control levels in adult asthma patients in Puerto Rico have been done.

Methods: This study is secondary analysis of an observational and cross-sectional database generated by the Latin American Asthma Insights and Management (LA AIM) survey. Our sub-sample consisted of adults 18 years or older living with asthma, representing a total of 343 individuals.

Reducing quality-of-care disparities in childhood asthma: La Red de Asma Infantil intervention in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Background And Objective: Although children living in Puerto Rico have the highest asthma prevalence of all US children, little is known regarding the quality-of-care disparities they experience nor the adaptability of existing asthma evidence-based interventions to reduce these disparities. The objective of this study was to describe our experience in reducing quality-of-care disparities among Puerto Rican children with asthma by adapting 2 existing evidence-based asthma interventions.

Methods: We describe our experience in adapting and implementing 2 previously tested asthma evidence-based interventions: the Yes We Can program and the Inner-City Asthma Study intervention.

Balancing "fidelity" and community context in the adaptation of asthma evidence-based interventions in the "real world".

The Merck Childhood Asthma Network (MCAN) initiative selected five sites (New York City, Puerto Rico, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia) to engage in translational research to adapt evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to improve childhood asthma outcomes. The authors summarize the sites' experience by describing criteria defining the fidelity of translation, community contextual factors serving as barriers or enablers to fidelity, types of adaptation conducted, and strategies used to balance contextual factors and fidelity in developing a "best fit" for EBIs in the community. A conceptual model captures important structural and process-related factors and helps frame lessons learned.