May is Asthma Awareness Month: take action!
Healthy Schools Network’s founding issue is indoor air/environmental quality.
We are especially concerned about schools that do not mechanical air handling systems (like most of New York’s public school buildings), which means that air filtration, air changes per hour, and air conditioning in classrooms are all more difficult – or sometimes impossible – to provide.
Did you know that the NYS DoH documented that pediatric asthma hospitalizations can TRIPLE in September and after returning to school after vacations?
But those are not the only schools to be concerned about. What about:
- schools with leaky roofs and foundations, or that are subject to frequent flooding;
- schools that refuse to use third-party certified cleaning products and safer disinfectants and instead use high-hazard cleaning and disinfecting chemicals;
- schools that have ignored the OSHA rules about safe chemical product management in classrooms like voc-ed and art and science labs; or
- schools that have unwisely started a major renovation project without any controls, or installed 3-D printers that spew out tiny particles of plastics that can be inhaled?
Here are a few tips on what you can do to make sure every child can breathe cleaner air in school.
- Assess molds and dampness in your school: NIOSH tool
- Learn about green cleaning products (fewer ingredients that trigger asthma)
- Get your school started on green cleaning
- Adopt a fragrance-free policy
- Controlling renovation dust and fumes in occupied schools
What else can you do to help kids and schools with too many asthma events?
See our tips for local organizing and email us at info@healthyschools.org if you need more help.
