Home Environmental Interventions for the Prevention or Control of Allergic and Respiratory Diseases: What Really Works.

Abstract

Home health care workers interventions have been implemented in western countries to improve health status of patients with respiratory diseases especially asthma and allergic illnesses. Twenty-six controlled studies dealing with prevention and control of these diseases through home environmental interventions were reviewed. After a comprehensive description of the characteristics of these studies, the effectiveness of each intervention was then evaluated in terms of participants' compliance with the intervention program, improvement of quality of the indoor environment, and finally improvement of health outcomes, in detailed tables. Limitations and biases of the studies are also discussed. Overall, this review aims at giving a toolbox for home health care workers to target the most appropriate measures to improve health status of the patient depending on his and/or her environment and disease. Only a case-by-case approach with achievable measures will warrant the efficacy of home interventions. This review will also provide to the research community a tool to better identify targets to focus in future evaluation studies of home health care workers action.