Enhancing a school-based asthma education program: The power of collaboration between general education and health education

Background: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute guidelines identify self-management education as one of four key components of asthma care. Yet, effective asthma education, like health education in general, is challenging work requiring knowledge of the disease and effective pedagogical approaches. Greater understanding of relevant pedagogical approaches can directly benefit health education programs. Purpose: This presentation will: 1) examine the effectiveness of an asthma education curriculum revised to incorporate general education approaches and 2) highlight teaching strategies that were particularly effective. Fight Asthma Now (FAN) is a validated asthma curriculum developed for urban school students. Its initial design emphasized delivering medically accurate asthma information to students. However, like other asthma curricula, education approaches received less attention than health content. When program evaluation indicated gaps in students' comprehension of key aspects of asthma control, collaboration with general education experts was sought. Subsequent curriculum revisions incorporated activities informed by learning theory, culturally responsive pedagogy, and classroom management strategies. Pre/post-assessments suggest this revised curriculum supports students' comprehension of complex concepts key to asthma self-management, such as asthma's underlying pathophysiology and the role of long-term medication. Observational data also indicate that redesigned activities have increased student engagement and focus. Conclusions: Collaborations between health and educational experts offer great benefits for educators as well as learners. Collaboration across disciplines harnesses the strengths of each. School health educators, located in educational settings, are uniquely positioned to pursue and develop partnerships similar to the one that informed the most effective parts of FAN's revision.