The University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing recently welcomed Luo Dan, a visiting scholar from the HOPE School of Nursing at Wuhan University in Wuhan, China. Luo, who arrived in December, will spend the next year researching strategies for adolescent asthma management under Dr. Eileen Kintner, Professor and Mary W. and Carl E. Gulbrandsen Chair in Pediatric Nursing.
Luo hopes to develop an electronic asthma management app geared toward parents of young children (below age five) exhibiting asthma symptoms. The app would connect parents with resources, education and support to help them control asthma symptoms and limit the disease’s impact on their children’s health and their families’ lives.
Many parents currently rely on the internet for information, Luo says, and they could benefit from a tool with evidence-based recommendations and guidance tailored to their child or circumstances. “Technology can change health behavior,” Luo says. “It is very hard to deliver all health education face-to-face, and technology provides another way to reach more individuals and promote healthy behaviors.”
Luo is focusing on children at the earliest suggestion of disease. Early intervention, she says, is critical in developing good symptom management and practices that will remain with children with asthma as they grow.