Pediatrics in the community: taking a collective breath to help children who have asthma.

1. Kate Leonard, MD 2. Maria Mosquera, MD 1. Pediatric Residents Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford University Palo Alto, Calif 1. C. Andrew Aligne, MD 1. Co-Director of the Pediatric Links to the Community Program University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry Rochester, NY Childhood asthma is a global epidemic that, in the United States, disproportionately affects the urban poor. (1) Residents Kate Leonard and Maria Mosquera, from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University, joined forces with their resident colleagues to help create a program to decrease asthma morbidity in East Palo Alto, California, a disadvantaged neighborhood where asthma hospitalization rates are three times higher than in the rest of their county. Their primary partner was the school district, which identified asthma as its top health concern. The residents from two consecutive cohorts agreed to work on this issue under the guidance of general pediatrician Lisa Chamberlain. From a literature review of successful community interventions to reduce …