National Asthma Training Curriculum -- Module III: Epidemiology (CD-ROM)

Course Number: CB3070

Asthma is a chronic disease with a large impact on our nation. Despite evidence that asthma death rates are leveling off and asthma hospitalization rates are declining, asthma''''''''s impact on health, quality of life, and the economy remain substantial. Rates of severe asthma continue to disproportionately affect poor, minority, inner-city populations.

Due to increasing awareness of the significance of asthma, and increased funding opportunities from federal agencies, health departments have begun committing extra staff resources to work on asthma. These new staff members require training on asthma issues. Public health personnel are not limited only to those working in health departments. They also include school nurses, employees of federal health and environmental agencies, health care providers, and others with a vested interest in controlling asthma.

The purpose of this CD-ROM is to provide an off-the-shelf resource guide about asthma for the public health workforce. The NATC provides a basic overview of asthma outlined in the following six modules:
  • Pathophysiology and Diagnosis (Module I)
  • Asthma Management (Module II)
  • Epidemiology (Module III)
  • Asthma Surveillance (Module IV)
  • Asthma Education for the Patient, Provider and the Public (Module V)
  • Administration of Asthma within Public Health (Module VI)

A task force of representatives from clinical medicine, public health, nursing, management, and education researched and evaluated established criteria based on the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) Expert 2 Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma to create this curriculum.

This is the third module of a 6-part educational activity on asthma.

Topics highlighted: The role of epidemiology in understanding asthma, asthma definitions and surveillance definitions, measuring asthma in epidemiological research, incidence and natural history of asthma, asthma trends, risk factors for asthma, potential explanations for increasing asthma morbidity and mortality.

Program Information

TARGET AUDIENCE: The target audience for this program includes administrators/ directors/managers; allied health professionals; environmental health professionals; epidemiologists/surveillance staff; general public health staff; government and community leaders; health educators; nurses; pharmacy professionals; physicians and other clinicians; policy/planner; public health officials; respiratory therapists; teacher/ faculty; and the general public.

MATERIALS: All six modules of the National Asthma Training Curriculum are available on one CD-ROM. To order a copy, call the Public Health Foundation at 1-877-252-1200 (US) or 301-645-7773 (International) 9:00am - 5:00pm EDT. You may also visit their online bookstore at http://bookstore.phf.org/prod366.htm.

This is a self-study program that is self-contained and requires no other documents or references to complete. The contents of the CD-ROM are in both audio and visual formats. Each module is presented via video and voice over describing the slides. Each module is also supported by a text document that expands upon the audio/video portion and provides resources for further education. The text documents are formatted in Microsoft Word®, slides are in Microsoft Power Point ® and Surveillance Fact Sheets are in Adobe Acrobat ®. You must have these installed on your system.