Impact

Penn State and Philadelphia schools fight pests that trigger asthma

The presence of mice in a building can trigger asthma in susceptible individuals. A Penn State partnership with the Philadelphia School District is aimed at keeping mice and other pests out of district buildings. Credit: David Illig, via Flickr Creative CommonsAll Rights Reserved.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Asthma is a chronic lung disease affecting 10 percent of school-aged children in the United States. In Philadelphia, this number jumps to almost 25 percent, and in some neighborhoods, nearly 50 percent of school-aged children have been diagnosed.

The Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management, or PA IPM, program — a collaboration between the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture — is partnering with the School District of Philadelphia to reduce asthma triggers in schoolchildren by preventing pests, including mice and cockroaches, from entering schools.

"Asthma can limit physical activity and is the No. 1 reason for school absenteeism," said Michelle Niedermeier, community IPM coordinator for PA IPM. "While asthma cannot be cured, it can be controlled with medication and by avoiding common triggers such as tobacco smoke, mold, cockroaches and mice. School buildings that can be penetrated easily by mice and other pests might be a contributing factor to this high incidence of asthma."

According to Niedermeier, an asthma attack can be triggered by a protein found in mouse urine. "Mice are ubiquitous; they pee all the time, so there are urine droplets everywhere they've been," she said. To help alleviate this problem, PA IPM is helping the school district educate staff and students about asthma triggers. They also are assisting with the district's rodent reduction campaign via the door sweep initiative, which is designed to keep pests out of buildings.

"Cockroaches and mice often come in the same way we do — through the front door," said Niedermeier. "If there's a big gap at the bottom of the door, they can just walk in, even though the door is closed."

Niedermeier and her colleague, Dion Lerman, environmental health programs specialist for PA IPM, assisted with the inspection of schools' exterior doors and helped to develop a strategy for selecting the most appropriate and effective door sweeps. Lerman also created a video to teach district facilities staff members how to install the door sweeps properly. So far, the district has installed about 1,500 new door sweeps in its buildings.

"This initiative already has been preventing pests from entering schools underneath exterior doors," said Francine Locke, director of environmental services at the School District of Philadelphia.

As a land-grant university, part of Penn State's role is to help Pennsylvania's communities to implement research findings and best practices. "Philadelphia's school district, like many across the United States, has pest issues and kids with asthma, and by lending our expertise, we can help alleviate some of the risk factors. The door sweeps are a good first step in preventing the pest from becoming a problem," said Niedermeier.

"The School District of Philadelphia has learned from PA IPM that the pest-management chemicals used to address pests in schools sometimes may be more harmful in terms of toxicity, carcinogenicity and respiratory irritants than the pests themselves," said Locke.

"Our IPM program is strategic in terms of how we identify pests in schools, how they are entering a building, the environmental conditions in schools that promote pests, and the many different district departments and operations that could affect pests in by creating conditions that attract them," she said. "The support and technical guidance of PA IPM has been extremely helpful in guiding our district to healthy and safe ways to prevent and address pests in schools."

In addition to building the partnership with the school district, PA IPM works with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the American Lung Association via the Pennsylvania Asthma Partnership, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Community Asthma Prevention Program and other organizations and agencies to address asthma-related issues.

These efforts are aimed at carrying out the mission of World Asthma Day: to encourage the identification of allergens and irritants that can lead to asthma attacks and to create asthma action plans for minimizing these irritants, with the goal of improving asthma awareness and care. World Asthma Day was observed this year on May 3.

To learn more about IPM in Philadelphia, visit the PA IPM website.

Last Updated May 6, 2016

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