title: An Evaluation of a State-Funded Healthy Homes Intervention on Asthma Outcomes in Adults and Children.
abstract: Reducing exposure to environmental triggers is a critical part of asthma management.
  
  
  
  To evaluate the impact of a healthy homes intervention on asthma outcomes and assess the impact of different targeting strategies.
  
  
  
  The New York State (NYS) Healthy Neighborhoods Program (HNP) operates in select communities with a higher burden of housing-related illness and associated risk factors.
  
  
  
  Residents with asthma were recruited through 3 mechanisms: door-to-door canvassing (CANVASSED), 752 residents in 457 dwellings; referrals from community partners (REFERRED), 573 residents in 307 dwellings; referrals of Medicaid enrollees with poorly controlled asthma (TARGETED), 140 residents in 140 dwellings.
  
  
  
  The NYS HNP provides visual assessments and low-cost interventions to identify and address asthma triggers and trigger-promoting conditions in the home environment. Conditions are reassessed during a revisit conducted 3 to 6 months after the initial visit.
  
  
  
  The analysis compares improvements across the 3 groups for measures of asthma self-management, health care access, morbidity, and environmental conditions. An asthma trigger score characterizing the extent of multiple triggers in a dwelling was also calculated.
  
  
  
  Among 1465 adults and children, there were significant improvements in environmental conditions and self-reported self-management, health care access, and asthma morbidity outcomes for each group. The improvement was greatest in the TARGETED group for most outcomes, but selected measures of self-management and health care access were greater in the other groups. The mean improvement was significantly greater in the TARGETED group.
  
  
  
  Targeting the intervention to people with poorly controlled asthma maximizes improvements in trigger avoidance and asthma morbidity; however, other recruitment strategies are effective for impacting endpoints related to health care access and self-management. This evaluation demonstrates that a low-intensity home-based environmental intervention is effective as well as practical and feasible. Health care payers, state and local health departments, and others should consider investing in these home-based services as part of a comprehensive asthma care package.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Healthy Housing, Columbia, Maryland (Ms Reddy and Dr Dixon); and New York State Department of Health, Albany, New York (Ms Gomez).
authors.forename: Amanda L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Reddy
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.forename: Sherry L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Dixon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006078:Government Programs / Q000592:standards*; D006792:House Calls; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009017:Morbidity; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010346:Patient Care Management / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013219:State Government; D016903:Drug Monitoring