School

Comprehensive asthma management program. In 1977, Dr. Plaut embarked on a comprehensive asthma management program. This effort took many forms and covered many sites throughout the U.S. Dr. Albert Sheffer, Chairman of the NHLBI Expert Panel on the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma, summarized Plaut’s work saying, "Dr. Plaut's contributions to asthma education are clear, concise, and accurate. They have set a new standard for excellence."

Each of the elements that Plaut developed to improve asthma care has been judged successful by those who used or participated in them. Several have been reported in journal articles. These elements include:
• Directed the nation’s most successful cohort asthma interventions. This $68,000 program saved $266,000 in hospital costs alone.
• Wrote several asthma books, three of which were cited in the 1997 NHLBI Guidelines.
• Developed the Asthma Peak Flow Diary and the Asthma Signs Diary. These diaries allow patients to see the relationship between triggers, peak flow or signs, medicines and activity on a daily basis. (Supplement, Asthma Peak Flow Diary.)
• Designed an asthma action plan for young children based on objective signs rather than symptoms.
• Designed distance-learning programs for professionals and patients.

The overall goal of our program is to reduce the frequency of school absence due to asthma in children in the inner city of Denver, Colorado with the long term goal of expanding statewide. We will do this by carefully analyzing the prevalence and levels of asthma severity in children in the Denver Public School(DPS) system. We will then work with DPS to implement systems to standardize the management of asthma in schools. We will assure that each child has a "medical home" for asthma management by creating a network of care providers for each child that includes teachers, school nurses, primary care physicians and specialist care if needed. Finally, we will create a database of children with asthma in the DPS system, develop an "asthma snapshot" unique to each child, and ultimately develop techniques to reduce the burden of asthma in children who suffer significant school absence due to asthma.

In response to the growing asthma problem, EPA created a national, multifaceted asthma education and outreach program to share information about environmental factors -- found indoors and outdoors -- that trigger asthma. Although there is no cure, asthma can be controlled through medical treatment and management of environmental asthma triggers. EPA's goal is to reduce exposure to indoor asthma triggers and improve the quality of life for 6.5 million people by 2012.

EPA's Asthma Program raises awareness about asthma and environmental factors that trigger asthma attacks; helps people with asthma and their families manage environmental triggers in their homes; works to reduce children's exposure to indoor asthma triggers at schools and day care centers; and promotes environmental management as a component of medical and health care asthma management practices