Summer camp is about swimming. Making friends. Getting homesick. Except when you have asthma. Then, it can be a time when just breathing is a struggle.
Unless it’s a special weeklong camp—associated with the Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute—that brings together Rhode Island children for a week of games, outdoor activities, and education about something that affects each child’s life: asthma.
“Here, everybody—including many of the counselors and instructors—has asthma,” says Jimmy Dorroh, a recent Brown alumnae. “It’s a normal thing.”
A 2017 Hassenfeld Summer Scholar, Dorrah spent ten weeks on a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, clinicians, and fellow Scholars in the institute’s Childhood Asthma Research Innovation Program, working to translate that research into real-world care strategies. For Dorroh, that meant intense study coupled with an immersive experience in Asthma Camp.
In some urban areas, 25-50% of children have asthma. To explore and address asthma disparities, the Hassenfeld Institute and its partners employ and study various interventions.
“It was valuable learning how to do interventions that children and families can use to manage the disease on their own,” reflects Dorroh.
“I went into this with the goal of learning about the research process and how it works. And I came away with enough knowledge to design a project investigating pediatric asthma emergency department patients that, with some advising, I’m running on my own.”