A plan to help North Texas students struggling with asthma could begin with a study within some Dallas Independent School District schools.
The study, part of "Breathe Easy Dallas" will incorporate strategies on carefully chosen schools, where asthma rates are high, in an effort to find solutions that will lower the number of school days missed by students with asthma.
The strategies may include building green spaces, incorporating "anti-idle" measures for vehicles on campus and health iniatives at schools where none exist.
Respiratory therapist Shammara Norris of PositiveBreathing.Org has been building asthma awareness in South Dallas since 2011.
"The air pollution here, the idling of buses cars at school ways, the green space here, we don't have a lot of trees to clean the air, there are a lot of homes that need remediation and people just can't afford it," Norris said about the problems plauging South Dallas families dealing with asthma.
According the Children's Health, Dallas county leads the region in the number childhood asthma hospitalizations and it takes a toll on resources.
"When you tie up beds with kids with asthma, if they were just educated, those beds can open up for more sick and severe kids," said Pam Rogers, director of Children's Health Asthma Program.
The study, led by The Nature Conservancy, will take two years and focus on a handful of schools yet to be identified.
