Tyra Bryant-Stephens, MD is a core faculty member at the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness (CPCE) and PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), senior director of the Center for Health Equity at CHOP and the medical director of the Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP). Her research focuses on the use of community-based interventions to improve child asthma outcomes for underserved populations.

Dr. Bryant-Stephens founded CAPP in 1997. As medical director of the program, she leads a staff of 12 that includes registered nurse clinical and educational coordinators as well as lay home visitors. CAPP was designed to improve the health and well-being of children with asthma by providing free asthma classes in the community for parents and their children with asthma. In offering home visits and free asthma education, CAPP satisfied a strong need in the West Philadelphia community and received tremendously positive feedback from families and class participants. It later expanded to all of Philadelphia and parts of Montgomery and Delaware counties.

The CAPP+ Home Repairs (CAPP+) program expands CAPP’s vision to provide healthy homes for children with asthma. Founded in 2018, CAPP+ partners with home repair agencies to target asthma triggers, such as mold, pest residue and dust, by replacing and repairing roofs, fixing plumbing leaks, removing carpeting, and sealing holes and gaps to keep out pests and water.

The work of CAPP and CAPP+ have been funded by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Pew Charitable Trusts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Merck Company Foundation, and CHOP’s Healthier Together Initiative.

Dr. Bryant-Stephens completed her MD at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University and her residency in pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia.

Contact Dr. Bryant-Stephens at stephenst@chop.edu.