that have been developed by the College.
Over the past three years, the ACAAI has created and tested screening instruments and protocol for identifying schoolchildren with apparent uncontrolled asthma and allergy symptoms. The instruments are a questionnaire for children and an alternative questionnaire for parents or guardians. They were designed for ease of use by student and parents and ease of administration within schools.
The screening instruments were validated in a multi-center study with approximately 8,000 students and follow-up clinical evaluations of about 200 of those students in school systems in Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland and Rochester, Minn. The study was published in the July 2004 issue of the Annals.
"If we can identify 10 percent of the children with asthma and treatment them and improve their quality of life, our program will be a success," said Dr. Robert Miles, ACAAI past-president and chair of the College’s school-based screening initiative. "If one of those is your child or your grandchild, then the success of the program is 100 percent."
The new screening tools were presented by two of the principal investigators in the validation study, Dr. Raoul Wolf of La Rabida Children’s Hospital and Research Center, Chicago, and Dr. Barbara Yawn of Olmsted County Asthma Action Coalition in Rochester, Minn.
"Today I’m looking out onto a room full of ‘can do’ people," said Nancy Sander, president of AANMA, as she opened the conference. The morning was devoted to panel discussions and breakout sessions on strategies for getting asthma and allergy screening into schools. The afternoon panels and breakouts focused on methods for motivating parents to act on referrals for diagnosis.
"Visit a classroom and ask how many have asthma," said Janis Hootman, RN, president of the American Association of School Nurses. "The show of hands is usually larger than the number wearing glasses."
The loudest applause came on comments by Ms. Sander and Dr. Miles that every school should have a school nurse. "And one of the things I would like to see is every school nurse becoming a certified asthma educator," Dr. Miles said.
In the coming weeks, a Steering Committee of ACAAI and AANMA representatives will be developing strategies to place asthma and allergy screening along side vision and hearing tests in the nation’s schools. The conference gathered guidance from, and developed alliances with, the represented education and medical organizations and federal agencies.
Joining ACAAI and AANMA at the conference were representatives of:
- American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
- American Academy of Family Physicians
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Association of Respiratory Care
- American Association of School Administrators
- American College of Chest Physicians
- American Lung Association
- American Pharmacists Association
- American School Health Association
- Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network
- National Association of Elementary School Principals
- National Association of School Nurses
- National Association of State Boards of Education
- National PTA
- National School Boards Association
- National Education Association
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Division of Adolescent and School Health
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – National Center for Environmental Health
- Environmental Protection Agency
- National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- National Institute of Environmental Health Services
- Henry Ford Health System
Other members of the Steering Committee for the School-Based Allergy and Asthma Screening Initiative are Drs. William Storms, John Winder, Linda Ford and Jean Chapman. The other principal investigators in the school screening validation study were Drs. Rebecca Gruchalla and Susan Redline.