Asthma Checklist

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimate that 4.5 million American children have asthma, the number-one chronic childhood disease--characterized by wheezing, shortness of breath and a persistent cough--whose incidence has increased by more than 40 percent since 1980. Nearly 160,000 children are hospitalized for asthma annually, and asthma-related death rates for those 19 and younger increased by 78 percent between 1980 and 1993.

Although no single cause has been found, contributing factors include pollution in air indoors, where Americans spend 80-90 percent of our time. A recent asthma study of 11,000 infants published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood noted that in children under the age of three and a half, wheezing was partly explained by high levels of chemical products used to clean the homes.

Causal links to outdoor air pollution are also firming up! A five-year University of Southern California study, published in The Lancet in February 2002, found that children active in sports in areas with high average ozone levels have a three to four times higher risk of developing asthma than non-active kids.

Here's how to reduce a child's exposure to asthma-provoking factors: