2013 was a great year for food allergy and anaphylaxis awareness

Our community has seen great gains this year and food allergies have been in the national spotlight.  We’ve seen the passage of laws supporting stock epinephrine in schools and the recent release of the CDC’s Voluntary Guidelines on Managing Food Allergies in Schools and Early Care and Education Programs. So much good has happened.

 

AllergyHome experienced amazing growth in 2013

The two of us have spent countless nights, weekends, and pre-dawn mornings working towards our unfunded mission, to help keep children with food allergies happy and safe, by providing food allergy education to all who care for them.

 

Collaboration has been key to who we are and what we do

We have developed strong relationships with Kids with Food Allergies Foundation, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Anaphylaxis Canada, AAFA New England, Allergy and Asthma Network- Mothers of Asthmatics and others.  We are grateful for the incredible support from clinic and school nurses, advocates, educators, families, and friends in the blogging world.

 

What’s to come

We are looking forward to the new year.  It will be one of collaborations, new contributors,  and community.   Stay tuned for this and the launch of an exciting new section to AllergyHome.

It has been our honor and pleasure to be part of this amazing food allergy community. We wish you all a happy and safe 2014!

Best,

AllergyHome

 

Here’s  a recap of some of our accomplishments in 2013:

Schools.AllergyHome:

 

• We have updated our school resources to match the recommendations of the CDC guidelines and are honored at being listed as a resource in this guidance document.

 

• School staff Training Resources: Since the beginning of this school year the staff training module has been viewed over 20,000 times.  Our resources have been used by school nurses and schools in every state.

 

• A Massachusetts School Nurse Research Network study showed there were statistically significant improvements in staff knowledge, confidence and attitude after viewing the module (2nd edition) and the study was presented at the National Association of School Nurse National Conference and the New England Society of Allergy Annual Conference.

 

Social Media:

Over the past year, supporters like you have followed us on facebook, and our “likes” have grown over 600% in 2013.  We kept up with almost daily posts and launched social media campaigns that included our pop culture and myth vs. fact postings.  The most popular posts had a reach over 50,000.

 

AllergyHome Blog:

Recently we took to writing blogs where we can share perspectives, resources, and the perspectives of colleagues and others. The AllergyHome blog will be a major focus in 2014.

 

Living Confidently with Food Allergy Handbook:

Living Confidently With Food Allergy  was co-authored by Michael Pistiner, Jenny LeBovidge and Anaphylaxis Canada. Released in June, it is a free, easy to use, handbook designed to give parents the tools to keep their children with food allergies safe and happy while addressing their emotional needs.

 

AllergyHome Posters:

We assembled our collection of food allergy awareness posters using pop culture and humor to engage both families with and without food allergies.  All posters are freely available as full color 8 1/2 by 11 inch PDFs.