NIH Radio
Researchers Find "Pocket-Friendly" Way to Help Inner City Kids with Asthma
Brief Description:
A study, supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, showed that a home-based intervention successfully decreased allergen levels in the home and reduced asthma symptoms in children.
Transcript:
Akinso: Researchers have found a "pocket friendly way" to improve the health of inner-city kids with asthma. A study, supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, showed that a home-based intervention successfully decreased allergen levels in the home and reduced asthma symptoms in children. The home-based program was designed to target six major classes of allergens that trigger asthma symptoms — dust mites, cockroaches, pet danders, rodents, passive smoking and molds according to Doctor Peter Gergen, an author of the study.
Gergen: There's many things that can be done that are relatively inexpensive, second hand tobacco smoke is an irritant that causes asthma in children. It's virtually cost-free to have someone not smoke in the home. Things that are slightly more expensive to do is covering the pillow and the mattress with a mattress cover, pillow cover to prevent the dust mites from bothering the child when they sleep in their bedroom. The other important take home lesson, this was focus primarily in the child's bedroom, basically we tried to make the child's bedroom an allergen asthma free zone as possible instead of applying it to the whole house, because of practicality issues and cost issues.
Akinso: Over a two year period, the asthma intervention resulted in an average increase of 38 symptom-free days, at an estimated cost of $27.57 per day. Doctor Gergen says the findings will enable policy makers and health care providers to effectively allocate resources to achieve maximum benefits. This is Wally Akinso at the National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland.
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