Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

Pediatric asthma is the most common chronic disease amongst children in the United States and a significant health disparity by race, ethnicity, and income. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of community readiness to address pediatric asthma disparities in Douglas County and to inform pediatric asthma efforts. Following the Community Readiness Model, eight interviews were conducted with key informants representing four sectors of the community: healthcare providers, researchers or academics, other service agencies, and impacted community members. Interview transcripts were quantitatively scored across five dimensions (community knowledge of efforts, community knowledge of the issues, resources, leadership, and community climate) of readiness on a rating scale from one to nine to determine overall and dimension-specific readiness scores. The overall Community Readiness score in Douglas County was rated at a level of “vague awareness” suggesting that the community believes that there should be efforts to address pediatric asthma, but they are not clear what actions are needed. The lowest scoring dimension was community knowledge of efforts, which scored was rated at a level of “denial/resistance.” To further inform local efforts to address pediatric asthma, interview transcripts were analyzed qualitatively to identify factors impacting knowledge of local efforts to address pediatric asthma disparities. Three themes emerged when investigating characteristics amongst the limited efforts identified: collaborative, holistic, and culturally tailored. Understanding the community’s level of readiness can inform efforts to prevent and control pediatric asthma and encourage further research and collaboration.

Keywords: Children, pediatric, asthma, community health models, United States