Empowering kids through asthma studies Students in New York are participating in a study to see how pollution affects their asthma. The young people will carry around backpacks with air monitoring equipment and keep journals about the condition of their asthma.
This is the first time the study is taking this approach - using fifth graders with backpacks to measure the air pollution they encounter in their everyday lives. The researchers asked 10 students from three South Bronx elementary schools to spend three weeks wheeling around devices that measure air quality. Two schools have finished the study, and a third will complete it this spring.
The students take the rolling backpacks nearly everywhere they go.
"It feels like someone's following me," fifth grader Alex Berez said.
Clemente meets with each student twice a day to go over diaries the students keep about their health, activities and medication.
The students are diligent with the journals, Clemente said.
"They're really enthusiastic about it," she said.
Regardless of the results of the study, I think this would be a good way for asthmatics to understand what is happening around them. They wouldn't only need to monitor the air, they should be monitoring what they are eating, how they are feeling, what they are doing, etc. People need to figure out what aggravates their problems, and avoid or cope with those aggravations.
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