UAMS researcher is looking into children’s asthma in Arkansas

Little Rock, Arkansas – A researcher from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI) wants to find out why children in Arkansas struggle with asthma more than their counterparts in other places.

A $662,000 four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be used by Arkansas Children’s Research Institute early career researcher Akilah Jefferson, MD, MSc, to investigate why asthma is particularly problematic for Arkansas kids. Jefferson also teaches pediatrics at UAMS College of Medicine as an assistant professor in the Division of Allergy & Immunology. At Arkansas Children’s Northwest (ACNW) and Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), she provides care for kids with immunological disorders and allergies.

One of the most prevalent childhood illnesses is asthma, which can be particularly frightening for kids living in rural and underdeveloped areas. Children with asthma are more likely to live in rural areas of Arkansas, particularly those from low-income or minority families. Additionally, they are far more prone to experience life-threatening asthmatic problems.

A child’s family environment, access to healthcare, and the standard of treatment they receive are just a few of the variables Jefferson and her study team will investigate. They will also look at how these differences may be caused by various communities and healthcare providers.

“A child’s ability to breathe should not be influenced by their zip code. Children in Arkansas need our assistance in figuring out why asthma is so difficult in our state and in developing new strategies to support them,” Jefferson stated. “We want to make sure that every child, no matter where they live, has the opportunity to flourish and breathe easy.”

Jefferson wants to better understand these aspects in order to create focused therapies that can help children in rural Arkansas with asthma. This can entail expanding access to healthcare, improving asthma education, or addressing environmental variables that can precipitate asthma episodes.

The money is given out under NIH’s Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development (K23) program, which was created to give clinically trained professionals “protected time” to undergo rigorous, closely monitored scientific research training. In order to prepare the recipient to successfully apply for an NIH R01 or comparable large research grant at the conclusion of the award time, the award funds a period of supervised research and research career development.
Jefferson’s project mentor is Tamara Perry, MD, who is a pediatrics professor at the UAMS College of Medicine and the chief of allergy and immunology at Arkansas Children’s.

Under grant award Kl2 TR003108 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, the UAMS Translational Research Institute provided support for this work.