Effectiveness of an Asthma Summer Camp in Educating Children on How to Prevent and Control Asthma Symptoms

Pediatric asthma continues to be a difficult burden for 10% of American children and their parents and interferes with lifestyles and economic impacts on the household, state, and national levels. This study aims to evaluate a pediatric asthma summer camp, Camp Superstuff, in its ability to educate children about asthma knowledge and asthma control. I collected preand post-educational test scores from 2008 and 2010, as well as the 2010 campers’ asthma medical history, and camp evaluations from Breathe California of the Bay Area in order to measure the effectiveness of the camp in the dissemination of knowledge about asthma. My results indicated that there was a significant difference between preand post-test scores suggesting that campers accumulated knowledge through their participation in the camp. However, the correlation test between numbers of medical appointments and pre-test scores revealed that campers who got higher scores on the pre-test did not necessarily know more about asthma, showing that the campers only learned little asthma information during each physician visit. The camp evaluation demonstrated that campers and staff are generally satisfied with the camp environment and asthma information provided. Thus, Camper Superstuff seems to be an effective pediatric asthma-teaching program.