What is the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma?
The Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma (LBACA), started in 1999, is a partnership to improve the lives of children with asthma in the Long Beach community and surrounding areas of Carson, Wilmington and San Pedro, California. A program of Miller Children’s Hospital of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, LBACA was one of 7 sites in the US and Puerto Rico awarded grants under the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation’s Allies Against Asthma program, one of 12 sites in California awarded grants under The California Endowment’s Community Action to Fight Asthma (CAFA) program and also recently received funding from the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s British Petroleum Settlement for the new program expansion into communities outside of Long Beach.
What are the coalition’s current activities?
LBACA’s activities include a community health worker home visiting program, an asthma resource center, Physician Asthma Care Education training to improve physician asthma management skills and training medical assistants to provide asthma education to patients at provider sites. LBACA is also teaming up with schools, after-school programs, parks and recreational centers to develop asthma-friendly environments and policies; and mobilizing the community to respond to air quality issues, both indoors and outdoors.
For detailed information about LBACA’s activities, visit us at http://www.lbaca.org.
LBACA’s Key Accomplishments
Community Health Worker (CHW) Intervention
--Since its start in 2004 LBACA’s five CHWs have completed over 1500 home visits with almost 500 families of children with severe asthma. During these home visits, CHWs deliver asthma 101 education to ensure that families understand the disease, how to use medications and how to recognize when their child is having an asthma attack. They also conduct home environmental assessments to help families with no or low cost methods to improve the indoor air environment, including providing hypo-allergenic mattress and pillow covers, non-toxic cleaning solutions, and non-toxic pest management solutions.
Clinician Training
--LBACA has three expert physicians who have trained over 180 providers in our Physician Asthma Care Education (PACE) program. A special thanks to doctors Felix Aguilar, Jud Schoendorf and Elisa Nicholas for their support.
--LBACA has two expert nurses who have trained over 80 provider’s medical assistants and their staff in Asthma 101 education. A special thanks to Leslie Larsen and Jenifer Lipman.
Community-Wide Education
--Development of widely distributed and used, community friendly asthma educational materials.
--Annual World Asthma Day Community events 2003-07.
--Education of over 2500 parents and children in over 450 asthma 101 sessions.
--Over 100 trainings for over 5,000 teachers, after-school program staff, school nurses and others.
--Participation in over 200 health fairs, community forums and events reaching over 15,000 community members.
Presentations
--Annual presentation for the American Public Health Association from 2003-06
--South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Regional Asthma Conference of 2006 and the International Asthma Conference of 2007
--Annual presentation at the Southern California Public Health Association Conference from 2005-07.
--Presentations on our “promotora” model, on in-home asthma triggers, asthma 101, coalition based approaches to policy changes, the health impacts of goods movement, health disparities related to asthma and many more topics to numerous bodies including: California Pan Ethnic Health Network, CHEST, the Community Clinics of Los Angeles County (CCALAC), University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, the Black Legislative Caucus, Care First Health Plan, Faster Freight Cleaner Air Industry Conference, National Health Policy Forum on “Managing Pediatric Asthma: Mobile or Medical Home,” the Los Angeles County Assembly Transportation Committee, the American Academy of Pediatrics and many more!
Publications and Media
--LBACA published its coalition building and community engagement results in the Society for Public Health Education Journal (Supplement to Volume 7, Issue 2, April 2006).
--LBACA’s coalition members have been interviewed in numerous media venues including: Long Beach Press Telegram, the Daily Breeze, the Los Angeles Times, Discovery Health, local cable network specials, KPCC, KCET, On Earth Magazine, Telemundo, NBC Nightly News and National Public Radio’s Marketplace Report.
--LBACA completed a city-wide media campaign in which 150 English and 150 Spanish bus boards and 30,000 posters were distributed throughout the community.
Awards
--Annual World Asthma Day City Council Proclamations for 2003-2007 declaring May 1st World Asthma Day!
--Long Beach Press Telegram’s Newspapers in Education 2003 Golden State Award for best NIE program in California.
--Blue Cross of California’s Community Service Award and $500 for the Asthma Club for Kids, including a suite at Dodgers Stadium!
--South Coast Air Quality Management District’s 2006 Clean Air Award for Community Engagement.
--Coalition for Clean Air’s 2007 award for reducing cargo transportation pollution as one of 6 honorees in their annual luncheon.
--Top Achievements of the Environmental Community in Southern California Air Quality Achievement 2006: Ports Coming Together to Achieve Groundbreaking Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP).
--Certificates of appreciation from Senator Alan Lowenthal and Assembly member Betty Karnette.
Collaboration
--LBACA is a member of THE Impact Project, a collaborative of community and university partners focused on reducing the impacts of international trade on health and community life. (For more information go to http://hydra.usc.edu/scehsc/web/index.html)
--LBACA has been a participating organization in the Green Los Angeles Network’s Ports Subcommittee, a working group committed to creating a healthful environment and sustainable quality of life for both residents and workers in and around the Port of Los Angeles through its three recommendations. (1) to dramatically reduce air and water pollution from the port; (2)to ensure that the benefits of goods movement outweigh the costs; and (3)to adopt healthy land-use policies.
Appointment to Air Quality Task Forces
--Member of the I-710 Freeway Expansion Project’s “Tier 2” committee for community participation.
--Mayor of Los Angeles and Long Beach’s Goods Movement Advisory Task Force: Participated in creating criteria for Air Quality and Infrastructure Bond as part of Prop 1B.
--Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Clean Air Action Plan Implementation Task Force Members: Ensure proper oversight of the implementation of the twin ports plan to decrease emissions from the ports by 50% in 5 years. |
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