title: Breathing life into family processes: introduction to the special issue on families and asthma.
abstract: This introduction to the special issue dedicated to families and asthma proposes that the study of asthma highlights general systems topics such as integration of individual needs into the group, developmental trajectories of risk and resilience, supportive and destructive patterns of interaction, and the cultural adaptation of family therapy. It briefly introduces papers in the special issue and concludes that asthma can serve as an exemplar in the study of family health due to its comorbidity with mental health problems, potential to affect multiple members of the family, disproportionate influence on low-income and minority families, and multiple avenues for intervention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA. bhfiese@syr.edu
authors.forename: Barbara H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Fiese
mesh_terms: D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005192:Family Health; D005195:Family Relations; D005196:Family Therapy; D006801:Humans; D011788:Quality of Life; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology