Above 6th Grade

The purpose of this guide is to support school-based health center staff in leading or supporting evidence-based strategies and promising practices to reduce exposure to environmental asthma triggers. Although there is a broad array of evidence-based interventions to address asthma triggers, many people with asthma continue to be exposed to the factors that make their asthma worse. School-based health centers (SBHCs) are uniquely positioned to address this gap in order to help children breathe easier. While many SBHCs across the country are already playing a key role in helping students manage their asthma by providing quality clinical care and education there is an opportunity for SBHCs to also be leaders in managing the environmental factors that make asthma worse.

The guide describes the relationship between asthma and a number of environmental asthma triggers and shares scientific evidence that SBHC staff can cite when educating others on the need to address environmental asthma triggers. This is followed by five sections each tackling a strategy, or broad category of intervention, that SBHC staff could lead or support. They include:

• Education
• Case Management
• Improving Indoor Air Quality in Schools
• Improving the Students’ Home Environments
• Improving Outdoor Air Quality Around the School and Community

Each section provides an overview of the type of intervention, points to specific tools and resources, and suggests how SBHC staff can lead or support implementation. The array of interventions is intended to serve as a “menu” from which SBHC can choose depending on their interests, resources, and the particular needs of their patient population. While a comprehensive approach that works across settings and utilizes multiple strategies is likely most effective for reducing the burden of asthma, any step that SBHCs can take to reduce exposure to environmental asthma triggers will help students breathe easier. Reading this guide is the first step! 

When people get sick or develop a disability, they often ask their health care providers, “How did this happen?” The answer could be clear and obvious but many times it is more complicated.  A Story of Health multimedia eBook explores this question and delves into how our environments interact with our genes to influence health across the lifespan. We tell A Story of Health through the lives of fictional characters and their families - Brett, a young boy with asthma; Amelia, a teenager with developmental disabilities; and toddler Stephen, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Each fictional case features the latest scientific research about disease origin and helpful facts about disease prevention. “Although our characters are fictional, the risk factors they face are real,” says Mark Miller MD, MPH, co-author and director of the University of California, San Francisco, Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit.  “Our eBook brings stories of health to life through an interactive format that we believe will engage a wide range of audiences.”  

ABSTRACT:

Poor quality housing is an ongoing environmental injustice placing a significant burden on low-income and minority families. The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) in Baltimore, MD, grew out of the historical healthy homes work of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, an organization dedicated to using housing as a platform for health to ensure environmental and socialjustice for families and children in low-income communities. GHHI’s Healthy Homes Demonstration Project utilized the standards and practices created by GHHI: A Holistic Housing Assessment coupled with environmental health education and combined as an integrated environmental health and energy housing intervention for children with asthma, ages 2–14. The project braids resources from healthy homes, lead hazard reduction, weatherization, and energy efficiency projects to form a single multi-component, multi-factorial intervention. Findings from the health surveys at intake and six months after the intervention provide evidence of the impact on the reduction of asthma symptomatic episodes, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations, while showingimprovementsin school attendance and parents’ work attendance. Findings will provide evidence that improved health outcomes and more stable and productive homes in primarily African American, low-income neighborhoods are related to the mitigation of asthma triggers and home-based environmental health hazards. Upstream integrated housing interventions are an effective means to improve health, economic, and social outcomes for children diagnosed with asthma.