Dallas County celebrates the second anniversary of PASS, a celebrated tool helping asthma sufferers understand their vulnerability
In March of 2023, Dallas County Health & Human Services (DCHHS) announced the unveiling of the Pediatric Asthma Surveillance System* (PASS) that is helping asthma sufferers better understand the harmfulness of their environment to their condition. In the two years since its deployment on the DCHHS website, PASS has positively impacted the residents of Dallas County and has supported the efforts of Parkland Health (Parkland) and DCHHS in reducing poor health outcomes related to pediatric asthma.
“Dallas County is one of the few, if not only, communities in the country that offer this kind of support to residents suffering from asthma,” said Steve Miff, PhD, CEO and President of Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI). “We are very proud of the success of this model program showing how properly applied artificial intelligence systems can be used to directly inform and affect those in need in our community.”
PASS is a community-wide effort between Dallas County Health and Human Services, PCCI, and Parkland. Publicly available at the DCHHS website, it has been visited by more than 6,000 Dallas County residents, was honored by the Dallas County Commissioners for its service to asthma sufferers, and described by the Dallas Morning News as “a win for Dallas County.” PASS has also been featured in the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst.
“PASS is the direct result of the joint Parkland-DCHHS Community Health Needs Assessment, which identified the need for an actionable dashboard to help stakeholders collaborate using a single source of truth,” said Teresita Oaks, Director of Community Health Programs at Parkland Health. “By integrating health and social data, PASS enables our community to take a proactive approach in addressing pediatric asthma and reducing disparities in care.”
PASS includes a novel, validated Pediatric Asthma Vulnerability Index that integrates health and social data insights to identify communities where children have higher vulnerability to poor asthma outcomes and highlight areas of health disparities. It can also predict the probability of a community-level asthma-related emergency department (ED) visit or hospitalization within three months, by incorporating the effect of 10 community indicators, such as socioeconomic conditions, demographic characteristics, medication use patterns, health services utilization, and environmental conditions, on community-level asthma risk.
“One of the most impactful outcomes of PASS has been the identification of neighborhoods with the highest burden of pediatric asthma,” Philip Huang, MD, MPH, Director/Health Authority, DCHHS. “By leveraging real-time data, PASS has enabled us to pinpoint geographic areas where asthma prevalence and hospitalizations are disproportionately high, so we can more effectively target our resources and interventions to the communities that need them the most.”
The Pediatric Asthma Vulnerability Index and all indicators are categorized as Very High, High, Moderate, Low, or Very Low Risk based on their impact on pediatric asthma vulnerability in the community. On the website dashboard, users can drill down from the Vulnerability Index view to specific indicator views by clicking on specific indicators of interest or navigating to the “Other Indicators” tab. The user can also navigate the map from a ZIP Code view to a census tract view and can select a specific geography of interest for further analysis.
At every geographic level, a risk-driven, color-coded map is displayed in the center with demographic data included below the map. The top indicators contributing to the Vulnerability Index are displayed to the right of the map. To the right of each gauge, an impact score shows the degree to which the indicator contributes to the Vulnerability Index within a selected geographic area. Each gauge has a central black line indicating the vulnerability quintile of the indicator within Dallas County.
“The two years PASS has been running have been a huge benefit to Dallas County as community residents and stakeholders have had single source of precise, timely, and actionable data insights at a highly localized level to identify areas at high-risk for poor asthma outcomes,” said Yolande Pengetnze, MD, Senior Vice President, Clinical Leadership at PCCI. “More importantly, PASS strengthens public health leaders’ ability to plan, design, deploy, and evaluate pediatric asthma programs because they now have a single source of truth as a robust data source.”
Additional indicators are presented under “Other Indicators.” While these indicators were not retained in the Vulnerability Index prediction model, they provide the user with additional, actionable insights into drivers of asthma vulnerability in the community, such as the proportion of the population reporting tobacco smoking in the neighborhood.
“In this example,” said Dr. Pengetnze, “If a child with poorly controlled asthma lives in a census tract with a high prevalence of smokers and low controller medication use, the clinical provider might initiate caregiver education about secondhand smoking and medication adherence. Additionally, public health entities might address access to medication and smoking cessation programming at the community level.”
The PASS supports Parkland’s and DCHHS’ communitywide pediatric asthma programming and has been has also been used to engage parents or caregivers to participate in Parkland’s educational, interactive, pediatric asthma text-messaging program designed to help parents manage their child’s asthma.
To access PASS live, go to: https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/public-health/chronic-disease/asthma-control-overview.php
*This work is funded in part by Lyda Hill Philanthropies. Lyda Hill Philanthropies encompasses the charitable giving for founder Lyda Hill and includes her foundation and personal philanthropy. Our organization is committed to funding transformational advances in science and nature, empowering nonprofit organizations and improving the Texas and Colorado communities. Because Miss Hill has a fervent belief that “science is the answer” to many of life’s most challenging issues, she has chosen to donate the entirety of her estate to philanthropy and scientific research. For more details visit lydahillphilanthropies.org.
