SINAI Urban Health Institute

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EPA Award

Thursday, 03 June 2010 15:46

The Sinai Urban Health Institute has been selected to receive the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2010 National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management for their exemplary efforts to deliver high-quality asthma care that includes environmental controls. The award recognizes stellar asthma management programs that are using innovative approaches to improve patient health and quality of life. Sinai Urban Health Institute is one of only five programs to receive this prestigious award this year. Award winners are recognized for demonstrating that comprehensive asthma care with a strong environmental component can dramatically improve health outcomes for people with asthma. Click here for the official press release. 

 

 

The Sinai Urban Health Institute has been selected to receive the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2010 National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management for their exemplary efforts to deliver high-quality asthma care that includes environmental controls.

"It is an honor to be recognized for a decade of work on eliminating asthma disparities in one of the county's most vulnerable communities. Sinai Urban Health Institute’s work in this area exemplifies our commitment, and that of our parent organization, Sinai Health System, to serving as a national model for the delivery of urban health care," said Helen Margellos-Anast, Senior Epidemiologist and Program Director.

This award recognizes stellar asthma management programs that are using innovative approaches to improve patient health and quality of life. Sinai Urban Health Institute is one of only five programs to receive this prestigious award this year. Award winners are recognized for demonstrating that comprehensive asthma care with a strong environmental component can dramatically improve health outcomes for people with asthma.

Whereas 13% of children nationally might experience pediatric asthma, in the communities on the west side of Chicago, one in four children (25%) suffer from asthma as revealed by the Sinai Improving Community Health Survey (www.suhichicago.org).

“EPA is recognizing Sinai Urban Health Institutefor their outstanding efforts to reduce the burden of asthma for families in their communities,” said Mike Flynn, Director of EPA’s Office of Radiation and Indoor Air. “This program is achieving positive environmental and health outcomes, and EPA applauds their innovation and dedication to controlling asthma.” 

EPA will present the award to the Sinai Urban Health Instituteat the Communities in Action National Asthma Forum in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 2010.

Since 2000 the Sinai Urban Health Institute has been to try to reduce the burden of asthma on the communities which the Sinai Health System serves. In September 2008,with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Sinai Urban Health Institute initiated its latest and most comprehensive initiative: Healthy Home, Healthy Child: The Westside Children’s Asthma Partnership (HHHC). HHHC focuses exclusively on children with poorly controlled asthma living on the Westside of Chicago. At the heart of the HHHC model is a Community Health Worker (CHW), who makes six home visits over the course of a year with the goal of teaching the child and his/her family how to better manage asthma.The home visits focus on improving asthma management by educating caregivers and children to better manage asthma medically, while also addressing the disproportionate presence of asthma triggers in the home environment. CHEs make referrals to Housing Advocates from the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, pro bono attorneys from Health & Disability Advocates, and social workers from the Sinai Community Institute for assistance in addressing issues beyond the CHW’s expertise. The program objective is to significantly impact asthma-related measures of morbidity, urgent health resource utilization and quality of life. We do not know how to prevent children from acquiring asthma, but we do know how to help them control their disease so that they can live full and productive lives. It is hoped the HHHC will help children control their asthma so that it does not control them, and so that all the possibilities of life will be within their reach.

For more information about EPA’s National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management, visit http://www.epa.gov/asthma.