Posted on May 15, 2002 at 2:05 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Twenty students at Midfield Elementary school have been named "Certified Asthma Agents" by the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Lung Health Center. It is part of an educational pilot program with a secret agent theme called “Asthma Agents: Patrolling and Controlling for Asthma.” It is designed to teach children with asthma how to manage their disease.

“We have been involved with the Birmingham and Jefferson County public schools on an extensive research project to identify children with asthma over the past five years,” says Lynn Gerald, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAB Lung Health Center. “This training and education program is the next step, helping the schools and the students learn how to recognize and respond to asthma symptoms.”

The project uses an interactive computer program and a Web site that students access each day to record how they are feeling that day, and to log the results of an airway measurement called a peak flow reading. It is funded by an educational grant from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama.

“Each day before P.E. classes, the students blow into their peak flow meters, which record how open their airways are,” says Gerald. “Then they log on the web site and record that data. If the results show that their breathing is impaired in any way, they go to the school nurse for further evaluation.”

Students receive an "Asthma Agent" badge and receive certification stickers to add to their badge as they complete certain aspects of the program. They also accumulate points redeemable for toys and prizes, for each day they log on to the Web site.

“We’re teaching the students how to properly use their peak flow meters, and how to understand the results, says Gerald. “And we’re helping school staff better understand how asthma affects their students, and how they need to respond.”

Gerald says the long-term Birmingham Area Schools Asthma Program broke new ground in identifying undiagnosed cases of asthma and in teaching children to manage the condition properly. School officials asked for a way to continue the educational component once the UAB research teams finished their work, which led to the development of the Asthma Agents program.

The program will be expanded into additional schools in the fall.