Burden of allergy diets in Finnish day care reduced by change in practices

Abstract

The burden of allergy diets in day care settings could be decreased by simple pragmatic changes based on current allergy guidelines. Old allergy attitudes persisted among day care personnel, indicating the need for continuous education.

Structured intervention plan including component‐resolved diagnostics helps reducing the burden of food allergy among school‐aged children

“…An estimated 900 000 schoolchildren are daily served a free meal at school in Finland, and out of them, 70 000 (8%) require a special meal due to food allergies. The additional yearly costs per pre‐school child on a diet were quantified in 1100 Euro for the geographic area of Helsinki; this estimate was also considered representative for the Härkätie region. At the beginning of the study, the yearly estimated additional costs of special school diets in the region studied were thus 225 500€.…”

“…A specific aim is to reduce special diets caused by food allergies by 50%. Erkkola et al have recently shown that the burden of allergy elimination diets in a day care setting could be decreased making simple pragmatic changes based on current allergy guidelines . A similar reduction was also possible in school‐aged children where a number of avoidance diets were ascribable to peanut and nut allergy diagnoses based on cross‐reactions to pollen .…”

The Finnish Allergy Programme 2008–2018 works

“…In the Helsinki capital region, 40 Finnish day-care centres were educated to follow simple pragmatic allergy guidelines [21]. In 2013-2015, the prevalence of allergy diets decreased 43%, from 7.6% to 4.3%.…”

Food allergy in EAACI journals (2016)

“…Non‐essential allergy diets in children with mild symptoms may harm the development of immunologic tolerance and impose a burden on families and day care. One of the goals of the Finnish Allergy Programme was to reduce the burden of allergy diets in Finnish day care by change in practices . This national program supported by the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing developed a new special diet form and an information leaflet based on the new allergy guidelines.…”

“…One of the goals of the Finnish Allergy Programme was to reduce the burden of allergy diets in Finnish day care by change in practices. 47 Adolescents with food allergy have poorer psychosocial outcomes compared with their non-allergic counterparts. Healthcare professionals should seek adolescent and parental perspectives when assessing emotional and behavioral problems and monitor mental health during the transition to adulthood.…”