Asthmatic Schoolchildren's Treatment and Health Management Act of 2004

ASTHMATIC SCHOOLCHILDREN'S TREATMENT AND HEALTH MANAGEMENT ACT OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - October 05, 2004)

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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2023, the Asthmatic Schoolchildren's Treatment and Health Management Act. Nearly one-third of all people with asthma in our Nation are children under the age of 18, according to the American Lung Association. This figure translates to more than 6.3 million children. Asthma is now the most common, serious, chronic disease among children, accounting for 14 million absences from school each year.

I commend this legislation and believe it is great to allow students to self-administer medication to treat that student's asthma. We are encouraging the child to control their condition with correct management of it as well as giving them the responsibility to go get their nebulizer for a breathing treatment or get their inhaler when they know they need it. However, we still need to do more for our asthmatic children through education and outreach. Doctors say that asthma is a disease that can be managed, treated and prevented. Yet across our country, in cities like Chicago, there are no centralized asthma programs, and many States do not keep an up-to-date count of how many children have the disease.

We have seen asthma continue to strike black children the hardest, especially those who live in low-income areas. The 2002 National Health Interview Survey, a project of the CDC, found that 12 percent of all children under age 18 were asthmatic, and half had suffered an attack in the previous year. Black and low-income families get it far more often: 18 percent of black children had been diagnosed with asthma, and 9 percent had suffered attacks, versus 10 and 4 percent for Latino children, and 11 and 5 percent for whites. Due to a lack of health care, crowded housing, and more exposure to asthma triggers such as cockroach feces and dust mites, the asthma rate was also higher for children from families whose incomes were less than $20,000 a year.

Although, most children have mild to moderate problems, and their illness can be controlled by treatment at home, too many of our asthmatic children are ending up in our emergency rooms. The CDC reports that in 1999, 658,000 pediatric emergency room visits were due to asthma. The estimated annual rate for emergency room visits among children 5 years old or younger is 137.1 per 10,000 persons-the highest rate of all age groups. Asthma cost more than $4.6 billion in medical care and time lost from school or work. African Americans have nearly four times the asthma related emergency room visits as whites and are more than three times as likely than whites to be hospitalized for asthma.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, Chicago, where I reside, is commonly called an epicenter of the Nation's asthma epidemic. I believe that my State of Illinois, Chicago and our Congress need to encourage that more is done to help our asthmatic children, like education and, as the doctors suggest, managing, treating and prevention of this disease as a way to keep more of our kids out of the emergency rooms.