A History of Our Community-Engaged Partnership
What is now called the “BACK” Program, Better Asthma Control for Kids, began in 2006 as a community-engaged partnership between pediatric asthma experts at the University of Colorado and Colorado school nurses with a shared mission to address asthma care in schools.
The core components of this program have been delivered in the Denver Public Schools by other names:
2006 – Needs Assessment and Outreach Program
2008 – Pilot American Lung Association “Open Airways for Schools”
2009 – Step Up asthma counselor education and monitoring program
2012 – Building Bridges school RN care coordination program
2015 – Step Up expansion and Technical Assistance
2018 – AsthmaCOMP implementation and dissemination to new school districts; partner with CDE Regional Hubs
2020 – “Stop Asthma Attacks” NHLBI DECIPHeR Implementation and Dissemination to school districts in rural Colorado and mid-sized urban cities
2023 – AsthmaCOMP Expansion, Stop Asthma Attacks becomes the “BACK Program”
2026 – BACK Program moves into new phase of school nurse led activities with Asthma Navigator support
Program Goals
The overarching goals of the BACK program are to use Asthma Navigators to:
- Support school nurses to identify students with uncontrolled asthma
- Teach students and families successful asthma self-management strategies
- Help coordinate asthma care management
Our Team and Funding
Our asthma experts, including Lisa Cicutto, are faculty at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
With grant support from Colorado Cancer Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Disease Grants program and Glaxo-Smith-Kline, we have sustained our program in schools in the metropolitan Denver area since 2006, and have also supported other satellite programs and pediatric asthma trainings in other areas of Colorado and across the country in Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida.
In 2020, we received funding from the National Institutes of Health to work with several communities across Colorado to scale out this successful program to new areas of Colorado.
BACK Regional Engagement
In 2023-2025, the BACK Program is engaged with schools in these regions:
- Pikes Peak
- Lower Arkansas Valley
- Greeley/Morgan/Weld
- Mesa/Delta
Looking to the Future of School-Based Asthma Care
In 2026, the BACK program moved into a new phase of the program where school nurses select which core components of BACK they would like to continue to deliver, and Asthma Navigators support them to plan and operationalize those things.
BACK continues to work with Community Advisory Boards across the state to accomplish their goals in a way that fits the unique priorities, resources and needs of school districts and communities in different areas of Colorado.
To learn more, contact us.
