BREATHE-BRinging Exercise, Asthma Assessments, TeacHing to Everyone

Project Summary /Abstract Asthma is a long-term lung disease that causes episodes of coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath due to inflammation or bronchospasms that narrow the airways. Asthma is a growing chronic condition that affects over 30 million people in the US, and 20 million (9% of the US population) of whom are adults. Adults are five times more likely to die from asthma than children. A third of adults with asthma have had an asthma attack and approximately ten people die every day from asthma. While asthma cannot be cured, it can be managed. According to Global Initiative for Management and Prevention of Asthma (GINA) report, asthma is best managed with repeated cycles of assessment, treatment, and adjustment of interventions for asthma symptoms, risk factors, and comorbidities. Education is also recommended for all people with asthma and has been shown to reduce unscheduled doctor visits, days of missed work, asthma-related ED visits, hospitalization, and to also improve quality of life. The problem is only 21% of adults with asthma receive asthma education and the number is lower with minoritized adults or those with health disparities. With funding from an NIH/NHLBI Fast-Track grant (R44HL137502), we developed a COPD self-management platform for use with virtual pulmonary rehabilitation. This product is now in the clinical trial phase with promising preliminary results. This application’s broad, long-term objectives are to leverage the Blue Marble Health chronic disease self-management platform to develop BREATHE, an Asthma self-management tool which will include asthma-related education, assessments, exercise, and an action plan. Aim 1: Use input from SMEs to design and develop BREATHE. Aim 2: Evaluate the feasibility and usability of BREATHE and evaluate the extent to which BREATHE is inclusive of minoritized adults and those with health disparities. Participants will include subject matter experts such as adults with asthma and healthcare professionals who are asthma experts. Participants will complete the asthma self-management tool for 2 weeks and evaluate its usability using the System Usability Scale (SUS). Benchmark for success include a mean SUS score of rt65th percentile, mean net promoter score rt5, less than 50% of the study participants will have trouble with downloading the app to their personal device, 50% or more participants will agree that DEI was addressed well, and 50% or more participants will report that they considered making a behavior change. The relevance to the NHLBI mission related to health relatedness, is that asthma is a costly condition that is often poorly managed, and this is more pronounced in minoritized adults and those with health disparities. This application also directly addresses the NHLBI SBIR requests for proposals for the development of tools and platforms to improve the dissemination and implementation of evidence- based interventions for lung diseases and disorders.