The Chicago Asthma Surveillance Initiative - A community-based approach tounderstanding asthma care

Nearly all of the asthma surveillance Literature focuses on national-, regi onal-, or state-based estimates of prevalence, health-care utilization (spe cifically hospitalizations, emergency department, and ambulatory. care visi ts), and mortality. Although these are Important events, they reveal Little about asthma's impact at the community level and provide little informatio n that could be used to design specific interventions for improving clinica l outcomes, A useful representation of asthma care across a community could guide an effective community response to the burden of asthma, The goal of the Chicago Asthma Surveillance Initiative (CASI) is to develop a communit y-wide surveillance program that characterizes and monitors asthma care in the Chicago area, beyond existing public health surveillance, To accomplish this, CASI surveyed Chicago-area hospitals, emergency departments, primary care physicians, specialty care physicians, pharmacists, managed care orga nizations, the general public, and persons or families affected by asthma t o learn about asthma care and its outcomes, A variety of techniques (includ ing brochures, slide kits, and the Internet) were used to achieve rapid pub lic dissemination of study findings, The value of this comprehensive commun ity-based data surveillance effort will rest on how the community uses this information to stimulate new efforts to improve asthma care and reduce unt oward outcomes.