Coordinated Health Care Interventions for Childhood Asthma Gaps in Outcomes (CHICAGO) plan.

Background: Evidence-based strategies to improve outcomes in minority children with uncontrolled asthma discharged from the emergency department (ED) are needed.

Objectives: This multicenter pragmatic clinical trial was designed to compare an ED-only intervention (decision support tool), an ED-only intervention and home visits by community health workers for 6 months (ED-plus-home), and enhanced usual care (UC).

Methods: Children aged 5 to 11 years with uncontrolled asthma were enrolled.

Informing Healthcare Decisions with Observational Research Assessing Causal Effect. An Official American Thoracic Society Research Statement.

Decisions in medicine are made on the basis of knowledge and reasoning, often in shared conversations with patients and families in consideration of clinical practice guideline recommendations, individual preferences, and individual goals. Observational studies can provide valuable knowledge to inform guidelines, decisions, and policy. The American Thoracic Society (ATS) created a multidisciplinary committee to develop a research statement to clarify the role of observational studies-alongside randomized controlled trials (RCTs)-in informing clinical decisions in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine.

Feasibility and effectiveness of a community-based smoking cessation intervention in a racially diverse, urban smoker cohort.

Objectives: We evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness, in addition to the effects of a psychoeducation-based orientation on smoking cessation knowledge for Courage to Quit (CTQ), an evidence-based smoking cessation intervention disseminated to racially diverse, urban community sites in Chicago, Illinois.

Methods: Smokers (n = 1494; 55% African American) enrolled in 6-session full (n = 945) or 3-session short (n = 549) versions of CTQ in 2008 to 2012.

Results: Orientation improved knowledge of efficacious and nonefficacious treatments.

Evaluation of the Fight Asthma Now (FAN) program to improve asthma knowledge in urban youth and teenagers.

Background: School-based asthma education programs targeting disadvantaged youth and teens with asthma are lacking.

Objectives: To assess the impact of the Fight Asthma Now (FAN) educational program among 2 populations of predominantly low-income minority students: youth (3(rd)-6(th) graders) and teens (7(th)-8(th) graders).

Methods: Chicago-area elementary schools were invited to participate in this stratified 2-arm study.