CAPP+, a program under The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Healthier Together initiative, is helping make homes healthier for kids with asthma, writes Julia Landwehr for Health.

It is estimated that around 6.5 percent of children nationwide have asthma, but this jumps to 21 percent in Philadelphia.

The disease does not impact children equally. Data from 2019 shows that 11 percent of white children throughout the state were diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives, compared to nearly 17 percent of Black and Hispanic children. Additionally, Black and Hispanic children in Philadelphia are hospitalized for asthma at nearly five times higher rates than white children.

CAPP, or the Community Asthma Prevention Program, started in 1997 at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The program partners community health workers with parents who are having trouble managing their child’s asthma. They provide families with the necessary education and resources and check for common asthma triggers.

The program was so successful that Tyra Bryant-Stephens, MD, chief health equity officer at CHOP, and her colleagues launched CAPP+ in 2018. The extension to the original program renovates homes to remove the underlying cause of environmental asthma triggers.

“The most common triggers inside the home are cockroaches, dust, tobacco smoke, and mold,” said Bryant-Stephens. “We’re really trying to get to the root cause of these exposures in the home.”

Read more about CAPP+ in Health.

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