A University of Arizona Health Sciences-led program that provides schools with asthma inhalers to help students experiencing respiratory distress will be expanded and improved thanks to a $3.4 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health. In 2021, 38.
7% of children ages 18 and younger who had asthma reported having one or more asthma attacks in the past year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though asthma is controllable, research from the National Asthma Control Program estimated that 44% of children with asthma have uncontrolled asthma. "Respiratory distress is the leading cause of 9-1-1 calls from schools, yet access to life-saving medications for emergency respiratory distress during school hours remains limited," said Ashley Lowe, PhD, an assistant professor at the U of A College of Nursing and member of the U of A Health Sciences Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center.
"Our goal with the Stock Inhaler for Schools program is to bridge the gap in access to life-saving medications and safeguard the well-being of our youth." The Stock Inhaler for Schools program is a school-based stock albuterol program in Arizona that was launched in 2017 by researchers at the U of A Health Sciences in collaboration with Banner – University Medical Center Tucson and Thayer Medical Corporation. More than 800 schools across Arizona are enrolled in the program, which gives each school one.
