Leveraging secondary data for evaluation: Planning the expansion of the Illinois asthma partnership to reduce pediatric asthma related emergency department visits

Government partnerships with community-based and healthcare organizations have historically increased the impact of public health programs. In order to strengthen and expand the Illinois Asthma Partnership (IAP), external evaluators determined the degree to which local rates of Pediatric Asthma Related Emergency Department (PARED) visits aligned with local hospital Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA), asthma prioritization, and IAP engagement. The majority of counties with high PARED rates also had high levels of concentrated disadvantage. Combining these data enabled identification of 15 out of 102 counties where PARED visits were high and the program was not engaged. In these counties, there was an opportunity for the IAP to assist. Potential actions in these counties could include identification of a local asthma champion and development of a new program, actions to raise community awareness of asthma, and engagement with health care community leaders to discuss perceptions of need and competing priorities. This study provided a unique and cost-effective way of utilizing easily accessible data in order to plan the expansion of the IAP.