School-based approaches to identifying students with asthma.

A a common chronic illness among children and youth, affects one school-aged child in 11, or two to three students in a class of 30. Asthma accounts for 14 million lost school days each year. Students with asthma miss instruction while in the health room and may not be fully alert due to lack of sleep from night­ time asthma symptoms. Schools often lose funding for student absences. Schools are responsible for ensuring the health of all students while at school. Students with asthma may experience serious or life-threatening episodes at school, so schools need to know the students who have the illness and what staff can do to prevent asthma episodes or to provide quick intervention. How can schools deter­ mine who has asthma? School health coordinators, school nurses, and school medical consultants often face this question: “ Doctor Jones spoke with the principal and strongly urged us to provide asthma screening for all our students, but should we do this when our resources are limited? What should we do?”