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A school-based case identification process for identifying inner city children with asthma: the Breathmobile program
Craig A Jones1, Tricia Morphew, Loran T Clement
1Department of Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. craigjones@adelphia.net
Chest
|March 10, 2004
Summary
A school-based asthma screening survey effectively identifies children with asthma in urban settings. Incentives improved survey return rates, enabling large-scale case detection for early intervention.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Pulmonology
- Public Health
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Rising prevalence and morbidity of childhood asthma in urban environments.
- Need for effective case-detection strategies in underserved populations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a scalable, school-based screening process for identifying inner-city children with asthma.
- To assess the efficiency and reliability of a novel asthma screening survey and scoring algorithm.
Main Methods:
- Development of a bilingual, seven-question parental asthma screening survey.
- Clinical validation using a comprehensive allergist evaluation as the gold standard.
- Implementation of a tiered scoring algorithm and evaluation of an incentive for survey return.
Main Results:
- The scoring algorithm demonstrated high accuracy in identifying children with asthma (86.5% sensitivity, 83.6% specificity).
- A modest incentive significantly increased median survey return rates from 35.3% to 65%.
- The screening process has been successfully deployed in numerous inner-city schools, conducting over 27,000 surveys.
Conclusions:
- The Breathmobile case-detection process provides a validated, large-scale method for identifying childhood asthma in school settings.
- This approach facilitates early detection and intervention for children with asthma in urban communities.