Academic Achievement in Children With Asthma

Background: Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood with a prevalence that is 1.6 times greater in African American children than in Non-Hispanic White children.1 Nationally, 700,000 children are seen for asthma in Emergency Departments every year, 1% of which are seen at Children's National Health System in Washington, District of Columbia. School performance and school attendance has not been well studied in urban children with asthma, especially at the middle school level. Objective: Our purpose is to test the hypothesis that middle school children with asthma have worse school performance than middle school children without asthma in Washington DC and Prince George's county schools. Methods: The investigators will conduct a cross-sectional observational study of middle-school (grades 6-8 in the 2013-2014 school year) aged children with and without asthma recruited from the Emergency Departments and the IMPACT DC asthma clinic at CN. The investigators will collect demographic information, asthma severity information (for cases), and request that parents mail report cards and standardized test scores directly to the investigators. The investigators will use multivariable linear and logistic regression to determine if the presence of asthma is associated with school performance.