Saturday, May 10, 2025
5/10/2025
Texas Asthma Control Program - More than half a million children between the ages 0-17 in Texas are currently living with asthma. In the 2015-2016 school year, more than one in five of all Texas students, and two in five African-American male students, had received an asthma diagnosis in their lifetime by Grade 11. Uncontrolled asthma can take a toll on a child’s quality of life, potentially restricting participation in physical and extracurricular activities and negatively impacting academic performance due to higher rates of absenteeism. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a child with asthma misses an average of 2.3 more school days than their counterparts without asthma, which adversely affects federal funding for school districts. Additionally, there are significant medical costs associated with asthma care. Of the nearly $96 million Medicaid dollars that were spent on acute asthma care in Texas in 2016, $83 million was expended on pediatric patients alone. That is an average of $4,598 for each child covered by Texas Medicaid who received acute care for asthma during the year. The burden of asthma is not just limited to childhood. More than 1.5 million adults in Texas are currently living with asthma. Adults with asthma miss nearly two days of work each year as a direct result of their condition. Often parents or caregivers miss work when dependents with asthma require care, placing financial and productivity strains on both employers and employees. While Medicaid expenditures for adults only accounted for a fraction of the total spent on acute asthma care in 2016, 39.1 percent of adult Texas Medicaid beneficiaries who were admitted to an inpatient hospital for asthma care had at least one repeat inpatient hospital visit in the same year for the same diagnosis, compared to only 8.3 percent of pediatric patients. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) will support statewide capacity building and targeted implementation of evidence-based health systems interventions, community-clinical linkages, and environmental approaches to improve reach, quality, effectiveness, and sustainability of asthma control services and ultimately reduce asthma morbidity, mortality, and disparities. DSHS has strategically prioritized three metropolitan statistical areas of the state for targeted implementation in Year 1 based on burden of childhood asthma and related risk factors: Dallas/Fort Worth in Public Health Region (PHR) 3, Houston (PHR 6), and San Antonio (PHR 8). DSHS will achieve the following outcomes by the end of the project period: * Enhanced utilization of surveillance and evaluation data for program improvement * Expanded access, referral to, and delivery of coordinated community-based services in high burden areas * Enhanced capacity to deliver or refer to asthma self-management education (AS-ME) * Improved systems to encourage guidelines-based medical management * Enhanced linkages and coordination across public health and healthcare systems * Increased number of people with asthma receiving appropriate medication assessments and essential medications/devices * Increased number of people with well-controlled asthma and fewer asthma attacks * Decreased absenteeism at worksites and schools
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).