Asthma in Our Region’s Schoolchildren

Our region continues to have a high rate of children with asthma, including a high proportion of undiagnosed and untreated asthma. Poor control of asthma leads to more missed school days and emergency room visits, and has serious impacts on a child’s learning and difficulties with education after high school.

Join GWP as Dr. Deborah Gentile, Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Allegheny Health Network, presents findings from her pilot project "Surveillance and Tracking of Asthma in Our Region’s Schoolchildren" (STARS), which was funded by The Breathe Project of The Heinz Endowments. 

The project enrolled a total of 267 students from 12 elementary schools in the Pittsburgh region, all of whom participated in the study voluntarily.  The prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma in the study population was 28.7%.  Additionally, another 11.7% of students were found to be at risk of developing asthma, meaning that 40% of the students surveyed already have or could develop asthma.  Worse, 45.4% of the study participants diagnosed with asthma were found to have uncontrolled asthma. While there are many factors that can contribute to asthma, poor air quality was found to be associated with both the high incidence of asthma in the Pittsburgh region and the high rate of uncontrolled asthma. 

In addition to reviewing more results from the study, we will also discuss future efforts to promote programs that prevent asthma by reducing triggers; implement efficient and effective screenings for asthma in schoolchildren; development of innovative models to improve delivery of care to school children with asthma; and changes to public health policy to improve outdoor air quality.

This will be a brownbag meeting, so please feel free to bring your lunch.  Drinks and dessert will be provided.

Special thanks to The Heinz Endowments for hosting this discussion.