Research and Quality Improvement | Emory School of Medicine

For More Information about Clinical Trials, visit our clinical research team website.

Our Food Allergy Center is a Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) Research Center of Distinction.

The Food Allergy team at Children’s recognizes the potential impact of food allergies and has a pediatric psychology team led by Dr. Kaitlin Proctor available for support. Kids and parents may have many different experiences after a food allergy diagnosis, including fear, frustration or difficulty coping with needed lifestyle changes. Our multi-disciplinary team works together on several quality improvement, research, and community engagement initiatives.

Faculty in the division are involved in several initiatives in collaboration with American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology , the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology , and other national organizations.

Examples of past and ongoing projects include:

Work with the The Children’s Care Network (TCCN) to provide education, support, and resources to pediatricians.
Delay in Diagnosis of Food Allergy from First Reaction in Peanut/Milk Allergic Patients: This study aims to identify any factors that contribute to delay in diagnosis in food allergy and a baseline idea of delay in diagnosis within the FARE Patient Registry. The other six major allergens will be analyzed as well.
Restaurant Emergency Allergy Preparedness: This study aims to determine how many restaurants are currently taking advantage of the Georgia Emergency Epinephrine Act as well as what barriers may deter restaurants from holding auto-injector epinephrine devices.
Approached patients in-clinic about the FARE Patient Registry and their willingness to join using a REDCap survey. The results from these surveys were analyzed to determine potential barriers/reasoning that patients have for choosing not to participate in food allergy research.
Through the FARE Diversity Scholars Program, our team is working to develop a replicable model for food-allergy teaching kitchens for pediatric patients and parents. We plan to pilot cooking classes at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Teaching Kitchen starting next year.
Peanut early introduction: Assessing residents' knowledge about current recommendations of early introduction of peanuts and developing a clinical decision support tool to increase the number of residents that discuss early introduction with their patients.
Food allergy and CF: Multi site project to report rate of food allergies among patients with CF and characterize the phenotype of those patients. We hypothesize the rate of food allergy is lower among patients with CF as compared to the general population.
Food allergies and allergen introduction in Hispanic population: To characterize practices of allergen introduction in a clinic serving a mainly Hispanic population and to assess barriers to participating in research.
Eosinophilic Esophagitis research with Gastroenterology team
Eczema action plan creation and implementation
Partnering with teams at Georgia Institute of Technology to identify and develop novel tools for use in food allergy diagnosis and treatment.