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The inner-city is a well-established and well-studied location that includes children at high risk for high asthma prevalence and morbidity. A number of intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors contribute to asthma in inner-city populations. This review seeks to explore these risk factors and evaluate how they contribute to increased asthma morbidity. Previous literature has identified risk factors such as race and ethnicity, prematurity, obesity, and exposure to aeroallergens and pollutants. Environmental and medical interventions aimed at individual risk factors and specific asthma phenotypes have contributed to improved outcomes in the inner-city children with asthma.

Inner-city children with asthma are known to have high disease mortality and morbidity. Frequently, asthma in this high-risk population is difficult to control and more severe in nature. Several factors, including socioeconomic hardship, ability to access to health care, adherence to medication, exposure to certain allergens, pollution, crowd environment, stress, and infections, play an important role in the pathophysiology of inner-city asthma. Comprehensive control of home allergens and exposure to tobacco smoke, the use of immune based therapies, and school-based asthma programs have shown promising results in asthma control in this population.

BACKGROUND: Despite advances in asthma care, disparities persist. Black patients are disproportionally affected by asthma and also have poorer outcomes compared to White patients. OBJECTIVE: To determine associations between Black and White race and asthma-related healthcare utilization, accounting for complex relationships. METHODS: This study was completed as part of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP), a prospective, observational cohort. Between November 2012 and February 2015, it enrolled 579 participants 6 years and older with one year of observation time and complete data. Inverse probability of treatment weighting was utilized to balance racial groups with respect to community and family socioeconomic variables and environmental exposure variables. The primary outcome was Emergency Department (ED) utilization for asthma. Secondary outcomes included inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) use, outpatient physician visits for asthma, and asthma–related hospitalization. RESULTS: Black patients had greater odds of ED utilization over one year (OR, 2.19; 95% CI, 1.43–3.35) but also differed in the majority (>50%) of baseline variables measured. After statistical balancing of the racial groups, the difference between Black and White patients with respect to ED utilization no longer reached the level of significance. Instead, in secondary analyses, Black patients were less likely to see an outpatient physician for asthma management (adjusted OR: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.38 – 0.85). CONCLUSIONS: The disparity in ED utilization was eliminated after consideration of multiple variables. Social and environmental policies and interventions tailored to Black populations with a high burden of asthma are critical to reduction (or elimination) of these disparities.

Asthma in the inner city contributes to high morbidity and mortality, and, in school children, reduced school attendance and alteration in academic performance. There is a need to improve asthma care in the inner city by reducing asthma exacerbations. Methods are currently available to predict and prevent seasonal exacerbations of asthma. In addition, new medications are being developed that will be effective in improving pulmonary function and reducing asthma exacerbations. School-centered asthma programs can also be helpful to assist children and clinicians in applying asthma treatment plans and assuring optimal adherence to these plans.

Objective: Asthma is one of the major causes of hospital readmissions in the South Bronx. The goal of this study was to assess the impact of asthma education provided by registered pharmacists with...

In 2014, the Request for Applications from the National Institutes of Health. (NIH) for continued funding of a multi-site clinical and mechanistic research. Network, Inner City Asthma Consortium (ICAC), called for “efficient IRB review. And approval for multi-center studies” and “IRB approval within 30 days from. Submission”. These requirements were precursors to the NIH policy of single. IRB review for multi-site studies. Here we share our challenges, implementation processes, results, and recommendations, using a single, independent IRB.

In this article, we review current understanding of the epidemiology and etiology of disparities in asthma. We also highlight current and emerging literature on solutions to tackle disparities while underscoring gaps and pressing future directions.Tailored, multicomponent approaches including the home, school, and clinician-based interventions show great promise. Managing asthma in disadvantaged populations can be challenging as they tend to have disproportionately worse outcomes due to a multitude of factors. However, multifaceted, innovative interventions that are sustainable and scalable are key to improving outcomes.

Asthma is prevalent in inner-city populations, exhibiting significant morbidity and mortality. This review focuses on the consequential findings of recent literature, providing insight into onset of asthma, complicating factors, prediction of exacerbations, and novel treatment strategies.Analyses of environmental influence on inner-city children demonstrated novel interactions, implicating potentially protective benefits from early life exposures to pests and pets and isolating detrimental effects of air pollution on asthma morbidity. Through detailed characterization of inner-city asthmatics, predictors of seasonal exacerbations surfaced. Focused, season-specific treatment of inner-city asthmatics with omalizumab identified those most likely to benefit from season-tailored therapy. Comparative studies of urban and rural populations revealed that race and household income, rather than location of residence, impose the greatest risk for increased asthma prevalence and morbidity.Challenging previously conceived exposure-disease relationships, recent literature has elucidated new avenues in the complex interplay between immunologically active exposures and their effects on inner-city asthma. These findings, and improved understanding of other relevant exposures, could steer the direction of primary (and secondary) disease prevention research. Moreover, careful identification of asthma characteristics has effectively established predictors of exacerbations, highlighting individuals for which additional therapies are warranted and for whom such treatments are most likely to be effective.

Asthma exacerbations are important components of asthma morbidity. The Inner-City Asthma Consortium was established in the early 1990s to identify risk factors for and to evaluate treatments to reduce asthma symptoms and exacerbations. Early studies identified atopy and inadequate treatment as important drivers of asthma morbidity. Later studies demonstrated that good adherence to guidelines-based asthma care could virtually eliminate symptoms and reduce but not eliminate exacerbations. Looking at exacerbations by season, risk factors were found to vary across the different seasons. Of the 7 factors identified, allergic status and pulmonary functions were found to be important for exacerbations in all seasons, but allergy had its strongest effect in the fall season. Therefore, additional therapy directed at reducing the role of allergy was evaluated and found to significantly reduce exacerbations even in participants with good symptom control when receiving guidelines-based therapy. Despite this year around aggressive therapy, exacerbations remain albeit at a lower level and with less seasonal variation. Another strategy, the short term use of therapy aimed at reducing the role of allergy begun before the fall season and focused on individuals at high risk for exacerbations, was found to be an effective approach to minimize exacerbations and to limit the amount of therapy necessary.

Asthma is the most common chronic illness of childhood and inner city residents suffer a disproportionately high rate of asthma diagnosis and asthma morbidity. The School Inner City Asthma Study investigates the school classroom based environmental exposures that may lead to asthma morbidity in inner city school children with asthma. Within this cohort, we investigated the role of methylation at the promoter region of the beta-2-adrenergic receptor in relation to asthma morbidity. We found that high levels of methylation in the region studied was significantly associated with decreased report of dyspnea and trended towards significance for lower levels of asthma symptoms and airway obstruction. This Research Highlight discusses the findings of the recent study and the investigators’ active research endeavors.

JL Friedlander, WJ Sheehan, SN Baxi. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract. 2013;1(5):479–484 The goal of this study was to investigate the relation between food allergy and asthma morbidity in inner-city students with asthma. A total of 300 elementary school students with physician-diagnosed asthma were enrolled over a period of 6 years in the School Inner-City Asthma Study in the northeastern United States. Subjects were eligible if they had wheezing, used controller medications, or had unscheduled health care visits for asthma in the previous 12 months. This population was primarily a nonwhite (>95%), impoverished cohort …