School Environmental Intervention Programs

Abstract

Exposure to indoor allergens and pollutants plays a significant part in the development of asthma and its associated morbidity. Inner-city children with asthma are disproportionately affected by these exposures with increased asthma morbidity. Although years of previous research have linked exposures in the urban home environment with significant childhood asthma disease, many of these allergens are also present in inner-city school environments. Therefore, evaluation of the school environment of patients with asthma is also essential. School-based environmental interventions may offer benefit for this problem and has the potential to help many children with asthma at once in a cost-effective manner. It is important that environmental health researchers continue to assess which interventions are most practical and result in the greatest measurable improvements.

Emerging concepts and challenges in implementing the exposome paradigm in allergic diseases and asthma: a Practall document

“…The school is also a hub for pick‐up, drop‐off, and idling cars and buses, potentially contributing to a site‐specific increase in ambient pollution. These factors make schools a unique microenvironment of indoor exposures and an area of investigation relating school and home exposures to allergens, molds, pollutants, and other microbial exposures …”

“…The implementation of public smoking bans and clean air policies has led to a reduction in the hospitalization for asthma, and these policies should be reinforced in as many countries as possible . School‐specific targeted intervention work is ongoing …”

Mold exposure levels in northeastern U.S. schools and homes : a quantitative examination of the difference in mold exposure levels between schools and homes & the asthma prevalence for a subset of northeastern U.S. schools among children ages 4 to 15

“…Permission was granted to use the baseline data from SICAS 2 for this analysis. The description of SICAS 2 study methods and data collection details have been published previously (Permaul & Phipatanakul, 2018).…”

“…Mold exposures in children's homes have been the major focus in asthma epidemiological studies (Oluwole et al, 2017;Reponen et al, 2011;Reponen et al, 2012). However, there is a growing recognition that school is also an important source of mold exposures ( Amr et al, 2003;Abramson et al, 2006;Salo et al, 2009;Sheehan et al, 2009;Phipatanakul et al, 2011;Banda et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2014;Jacobs et al, 2014;Holst et al, 2016;Esty & Phipatanakul, 2018;Permaul & Phipatanakul, 2018) .…”

“…The SICAS 1 study demonstrated that students' classroom-specific exposures were associated with worsening asthma symptoms and declines in lung function (Bax et al, 2019;Gaffin et al, 2018;. Therefore, an intervention study (SICAS 2) using HEPA filtration in the classrooms in Northeastern schools was undertaken in order to reduce indoor allergen exposures, including mold exposures (Permaul & Phipatanakul, 2018). The subject of this component of the SICAS 2 study was the quantification of the mold exposure measured in the baseline samples taken at the beginning of the school year in each of the first four years of the study prior to introduction of the intervention in the classrooms of students with asthma in 32 schools in the Northeast.…”