Health Policy and Communications

Children are particularly sensitive to environmental pollutants and contaminants and certain environmental exposures can cause chronic diseases and lead to developmental problems. Cadmus partners with the U.S. EPA, among others, to protect children from environmental health risk and to improve the health of millions of young people nationwide. We support EPA’s premiere children’s health protection programs to:

Improve asthma management to reduce ER visits and hospitalizations and measurably improve community-level asthma outcomes for children and adults;
Incorporate environmental controls into medical standards of care and promote broader professional understanding of environmental risk management;
Address environmental, health, safety and wellness issues in schools by promoting facility;
improvement to reduce illness and absenteeism, improve community relations, and lower facility management costs;
Promote drinking water safety, particularly testing for lead in drinking water, in schools and child care centers; and
Partner with communities, local and state governments, industry, and non-profit organizations, to reduce children’s exposure to secondhand smoke in schools, homes, child care centers, and cars.

We provide full service program design and implementation support, including:

Media and materials strategies
Stakeholder and partner recruitment
Change campaign design and implementation, including the management of national members networks of people and organizations committed to improving children’s health
Awards program design and management for health care insurers, providers, schools, and community-based organizations demonstrating leadership in children’s environmental health protection
Public education and outreach campaigns to help parents understand and manage health risks to children

Dr. M. Sami Khawaja, vice president of Cadmus’ energy services group, spent more than 100 pro bono hours to help develop Indiana's Childhood Lead Poisoning Elimination Plan. His work included development of the program's logic model, which guided the program's design and laid the framework for its evaluation. When Dr. Mary Jean Brown of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spoke at the Healthy Families Conference in Indiana in November 2004, she said Indiana's elimination plan was one of the best – if not the best – in the country, partly due to the excellent logic model on which it was based. For this work, Dr. Khawaja was one of the recipients of a 2004 Lead-Safe Indiana Award.

Project Example: Asthma Change Campaign

Children suffer disproportionately from the health effects of bad indoor air quality, such as asthma. Approximately 6.8 million children in the U.S. suffer from asthma. Asthma is the third-ranking cause of hospitalization for children under 15 and accounts for 14 million missed days of school annually. Over the past two decades, scientists and health care professionals have documented a correlation between environmental pollutants and exacerbation of asthma.

The Challenge

EPA engaged Cadmus in 2003 to help develop and implement an aggressive strategy that would spur action in caretakers, health professionals, and community-based asthma programs and document the link between managing environmental asthma triggers and improved health outcomes in children with the disease.

Our Approach

Working closely with EPA, Cadmus conceptualized a multi-faceted change campaign that would promote and engage community-based asthma programs in developing and implementing comprehensive asthma management programs that include management of environmental asthma triggers. The change campaign has a goal of “mobilizing 1,000 communities to lead the nation in the delivery of quality asthma care.” The Campaign encourages health care plans and providers, parents, school administrators, public health departments, and others involved in helping people manage their asthma to model the attributes found in successful asthma programs.

For the Campaign, Cadmus developed an outreach strategy, a recognition program, a Web-based community network, and an annual forum. Cadmus drafted a comprehensive communications strategy, aimed at moving beyond simple dissemination of products to a well-conceived plan of regular outreach, including e-mails, products, events, and other communications, all of which are tailored for specific audience segments. A primary thrust of the campaign is to educate health care plans and providers about environmental management of asthma and have them incorporate these practices in the standards of care for their asthma patients. Cadmus has developed guidance for health care professionals and we manage a recognition program.

Our Success

Since 2005, the National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management has given national exposure to the winning programs participating in the change campaign and the positive health outcomes they achieved.

Cadmus conceptualized an online network for asthma professionals that would be a key tool in spreading change. The network promotes management of asthma on a community-wide basis and focuses users on adopting proven strategies for developing strong asthma programs. Cadmus is currently developing a Web-based tool for the use on network that would enable users to assess their asthma programs against five key attributes found to engender success. The network has more than 200 members engaged in sharing information, learning how to achieve success from early adopters, and spreading change to their organizations.

Cadmus has helped EPA organize an annual forum around the change campaign to encourage lasting behavior change. The forum, whose attendance doubled from the first to the second year (2006-2007), brings together community leaders from across the nation to share best practices. The forum engages discussion around issues critical to program success, including approaches to benchmarking outcomes, accelerating results, and building program sustainability.