Asthma Control Program

State Asthma Control Plan

The Asthma Control Program engaged in an ongoing strategic planning process to develop a Statewide Asthma Control Plan for Rhode Island . The plan was completed and approved by the Asthma Leaders Group and the Director of Health in 2003. The Plan has been built on the considerable efforts of Rhode Island's asthma control community in recent years, including a recent CME issue of Medicine and Health / Rhode Island devoted exclusively to the diagnosis, treatment, and management of asthma.

Planning Principles

The strategic planning process has been guided by the following principles:

• Give the local asthma control community oversight for the planning process.
• Build on the recent CME issue of Medicine and Health / Rhode Island.
• Divide the plan into chapters, each to address a specific asthma control issue.
• Recruit the most appropriate community "stakeholders" to work on each chapter. Avoid creating new groups. If possible, identify one existing community group to work on each chapter. Use this approach to get important stakeholders engaged with asthma control issues. Support each group with appropriate planning staff.
• Use a simple planning format, easily understood by all participants, that permits work to be done in short planning meetings.
• Provide multiple opportunities for input to the planning process.
• Provide multiple opportunities for feedback on draft chapters. Obtain feedback on draft chapters from multiple sources.

Planning Oversight

Planning oversight is now provided by the Asthma Leadership Group, in which the volunteer chairpersons of the Program's operating committees are members, as well as key staff members of the Rhode Island Department of Health (HEALTH) and the American Lung Association of Rhode Island (ALARI).