Asthma as a pediatric chronic disease is undergoing a dramatic and unexplained increase. It has become the number one cause of public school absenteeism and now accounts for a significant number of childhood deaths each year in the USA. The Surgeon General of the United States has characterized childhood asthma as an epidemic.
In ENVS 408, Penn undergraduates learn about the epidemiology of urban asthma, the debate about the probable causes of the current asthma crisis, and the nature and distribution of the environmental factors that modern medicine describes as potential triggers of asthma episodes.
Penn students will collaborate with the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on a clinical research study entitled the Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP). The Penn undergraduates will co-teach asthma classes with CHOP parent educators offered in community centers in Southwest and West Philadelphia, as well as North Philadelphia. The CHOP study gives the students the opportunity to apply their study of the urban asthma epidemic to real world situations.