The Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute will use a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore whether school-based telemedicine sessions with doctors can help students in rural areas control their asthma.
The Reducing Asthma Disparities in Arkansas (RADAR) research team, led by ACHRI investigator Tamara Perry, MD, will examine 12 school districts in rural east Arkansas counties, placing video-conferencing systems in six of them so recruited students with asthma can have regular education appointments with specialists in Little Rock. The remaining schools will act as control sites.
"Children with asthma often live with frequent symptoms, so it becomes the norm for them," said Perry, the study's lead investigator and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. "They don't understand that they shouldn't constantly struggle to breathe. We'll teach them that their asthma can and should be under control."
The RADAR study will include three years of school-based intervention, with each site hosting the video-conferencing sessions for a year. The project will begin in the schools in the fall of 2011.
Students ages 7 to 14 will learn how to recognize initial symptoms of an asthma attack, why it's important to take their medications as prescribed and ways to reduce their risk of complications.
Perry and her team hopes the study will reduce the disparities faced by rural children at high risk for asthma. If it is successful, the RADAR project could become a model for future chronic care telemedicine initiatives across the country.
