Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #117160

Rebecca Love, The National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, 1707 H Street NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 900006, 2022616475, love@neetf.org and Leyla Erk McCurdy, M Phil, Health & Environment Programs, National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, 1701 H Street, NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20006.

From 1980 to 1996, asthma prevalence among children increased by an average of 4.3% per year (Mannino et al. 2002). As of 2002, 9 million U.S. children under 18 years of age (12%) had ever been diagnosed with asthma and 4.2 million had experienced an asthma attack within the previous year (Dey et al. 2004). From 1994 to 1996 the estimated average annual number of school absence days related to asthma was 14 million, and the environmentally-attributable annual cost of pediatric asthma is estimated to be $2.0 billion (Mannino et al. 2002; Landrigan et al. 2002).

The avoidance of environmental triggers, such as air pollution, animal allergens, and tobacco smoke, is well recognized as one of the primary goals of good asthma management and is included in National Asthma Education and Prevention Program's “Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma”. Only a small number of health care providers, however, currently incorporate environmental management into their treatment plans.

To integrate environmental management of asthma into pediatric health care, The National Environmental Education & Training Foundation, in partnership with National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, developed evidence-based competencies, an environmental history form, and environmental intervention guidelines for health professionals. These materials, the evidence-based process to develop them, and strategies for how to integrate them into pediatric health care will be presented.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be able to

• describe the competencies for environmental management of asthma
• describe interventions for managing environmental triggers of asthma
• take an environmental history
• articulate strategies for incorporating environmental management of asthma into pediatric health care

Keywords: Asthma, Children

Related Web page: www.neetf.org/Health/asthma.htm

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.