Passavant Area Hospital officials are reporting great returns on a program to target asthma among children in Jacksonville.
It’s part of Healthy Jacksonville, and was funded through a couple of grants from the hospital association and Blue Cross-Blue Shield.
Passavant CEO Dr. Scott Boston says the program accounted for a 56-percent decrease in pediatric asthma cases in the emergency room at Passavant.
Asthma diagnoses are five times as common for black children, and they represent one third of the hospital’s pediatric asthma ED patients.
Dr. Boston says though 12-percent of Jacksonville residents are black, 36-percent of the program participants are black.
Dr. Boston says Healthy Jacksonville is looking at offering a help with COVID vaccination hesitancy among African Americans.
Boston says health workers are developing trust among those who have been distrustful in the past.
Dr. Boston says any inroads the group can make to reduce that distrust of the vaccinations will help the hospital better knock down COVID infections in the general population.