Air Aware is an asthma education program enabling children with asthma and their parents to become better caretakers of asthma. Through education activities children with asthma and parents learn to adopt successful asthma management strategies.

Primary Goal

Is to improve the way young students with asthma handle decisions regarding their asthma and to help them practice good asthma management as a regular part of their life style. Toward this end IMMEX problem-solving scenarios challenge students to practice handling a range of simulated asthma episodes.

Problem Solving Using IMMEX Software

Air Aware takes advantage of IMMEX software in presenting problem-solving simulations of typical asthma episodes.

Parents and children with asthma practice their asthma management skills: Within a software simulation, they access information related to asthma management and explore the steps to be taken during various asthma episodes. Content embedded in the simulations integrates with the Open Airways curriculum that the children and parents learn.

Behind the scenes, the IMMEX Analysis database tracks the strategies children and their parents use to solve the asthma simulations. The resulting maps of strategies serve as both assessment and feedback tool. Taken collectively, these maps help identify a person's areas of strength and weakness in managing asthma and thus focus on areas for improvement.

Multiple problem sets-varying from simple to complex are being developed to meet the needs of children from grades 4 - 9. Currently four problem sets are developed for stand-alone computers. All problem sets are being converted for access over the web.

Open Airways [http://www.lungusa.org/school/oas.html] is a six-week asthma curriculum developed by the American Lung Association for children in grades 3 - 6 and older. Program materials are available in both English and Spanish with many supplementary materials designed specifically for parents of children with asthma.

Reading Literacy

The reading program serves a vital function in introducing the language of asthma to the students in a meaningful way. Children meet in small groups with teachers and use a variety of materials (asthma stories, games, and scenarios from the software simulations) to develop their asthma vocabulary and comprehension.

Health Monitoring

When children enter the program, they are given a physical examination with focus on the respiratory system. Children receive and learn how to use a peak flow meter to monitor their pulmonary airflow. At the beginning of each weekly session, children take a peak flow reading and report any asthma episodes, absences from school, and doctor/hospital visits due to asthma for the previous week.

Locations

Lennox School District, adjacent to the Los Angeles International Airport

King/Drew Medical Center, South-Central Los Angeles

Program Length

Weekly meetings over the course of seven weeks

Follow-up IMMEX sessions and health physicals at approximately one-, six-, and twelve-month intervals

Program Staffing

All staff receive training in teaching and using the IMMEX software simulations and the Open Airways program.


Lennox School District
 

Faculty and staff from UCLA

UCLA undergraduates from Chicanos for Community Medicine (CCM)

Health specialists from each of the six Lennox schools

Nurse practitioner and staff from the Lennox Healthy Start Community Center

Parents from the Lennox community

All Lennox staff and UCLA students are bilingual (Spanish/English) and make a dramatic difference in the success of Lennox Air Aware, especially for the parents and a portion of the children who are primarily Spanish speakers.

 

King/Drew Medical Center

Physicians and medical students from the King / Drew Medical Center

Teachers and community representatives from the King / Drew area
Faculty and staff from UCLA

Air Aware is organized in conjunction with:

The Lennox School District (Los Angeles)
http://www.lennox.k12.ca.us/

The Asthma Education Program at King/Drew Medical Center (Los Angeles)

Support comes from the Centinela Medical Community Fund.
http://www.calfund.org/