Jill Fisher was awarded a Spring 2025 Making a Difference Grant from The Greenwall Foundation for her project “Challenging Fear of Anaphylaxis: An Ethical Framework for Implementing Oral Food Challenges in Allergy Clinical Practice.”
Fisher said, “There is a real-world need for practical solutions to bioethics dilemmas in pediatric food allergy, and this study will address children’s well-being by developing an intervention to better educate parents about food allergy risks and empower them to manage future allergic reactions by safely and ethically demonstrating in a controlled, clinical environment how to treat reactions when they occur.”
Abstract
This project aims to improve food allergic children’s quality of life by developing ethical and implementation frameworks to conduct oral food challenges in clinical practice settings. Caregivers’ fear of anaphylaxis can result in unwarranted restrictions on a child’s activities that raise important bioethics issues related to the child’s best interests. Ethical and safe food challenges in a controlled, clinical environment can improve children’s well-being by educating caregivers about food allergy risks and empowering them to manage future allergic reactions.