How are children with asthma affected by poor air quality? The first week of May marks Air Quality Awareness Week. The EPA measures air quality to tell us how clean or polluted the air is. This has special significance for people with asthma. Air pollution is a trigger for some people with asthma.
Through custom alerts, you can track air quality to plan outdoor activities, such as outdoor recess. That’s how one New Jersey mom realized her son with asthma was running into breathing difficulty.
Lisa Klein said poor air quality affects her own asthma. She had already been receiving alerts on her phone to let her know about days when outside air was bad.
She connected the dots for her son Seth when he started landing in the school nurse’s office after lunch. She realized that the days he was getting sick were the days her phone was getting air quality alerts.
She noted that his asthma is not triggered by exercise. When she started paying attention to the alerts, she directed the nurse to have him take his inhaler before recess on the poor air quality days.
“If I forget to remind him to take his inhaler before recess on poor air quality days, he winds up in the nurse’s office,” she said.
Do you want to learn more about air quality? The EPA invites schools to take part in its Air Quality Flag program.
Here are some resources for schools:
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