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. In addition to the partnership that PA IPM has built with the SDP, it also works with the U.S. 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.” “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 terms of creating conditions that attract pests. “The School District of Philadelphia has learned from PA IPM that the pest management chemicals used to address pests in schools may sometimes be more harmful in terms of toxicity, carcinogenicity and respiratory irritants than the pests themselves,” said Locke. The door sweeps are a good first step in preventing the pest from becoming a problem,” said Niedermeier. “The SDP, like many across the U.S., has pest issues and kids with asthma, and by lending our expertise we can help alleviate some of the risk factors. “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.Īs a land-grant university, part of Penn State’s role is to help Pennsylvania’s communities to implement research findings and best practices. So far, SDP has installed about 1,500 new door sweeps in its buildings. Lerman also created a video () to teach district facilities staff members how to properly install the door sweeps. Of schools’ exterior doors and helped to develop a strategy for selecting the most appropriate and effective door sweeps. Niedermeier and her colleague, Dion Lerman, environmental health programs specialist for PA IPM, assisted with the inspectionĭoors with a gap of a 1/4 inch or more can allow mice and cockroaches in. “If there’s a big gap at the bottom of the door, they can just walk in, even though the door is closed.” “Cockroaches and mice often come in the same way we do - through the front door,” said Niedermeier. They also are assisting with SDP’s rodent reduction campaign via the door sweep initiative, to keep pests out of buildings. To help alleviate this problem, PA IPM is helping the school district educate staff and students about asthma triggers. “Mice are ubiquitous they pee all the time, so there are urine droplets everywhere they’ve been,” she said. School buildings that can be easily penetrated by mice and other pests might be a contributing factor to this high incidence of asthma.”Īccording to Niedermeier, an asthma attack can be triggered by a protein found in mouse urine. “While asthma cannot be cured, it can be controlled with medication and by avoiding common triggers such as tobacco smoke, mold, cockroaches, and mice. “Asthma can limit physical activity, and is the number one reason for school absenteeism Nationwide,” said Michelle Niedermeier, community IPM coordinator for PA IPM. The Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management (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 (SDP) to reduce asthma triggers in schoolchildren by preventing pests, including mice and cockroaches, from entering schools. In Philadelphia, this number jumps to almost 25 percent, and in some neighborhoods, nearly 50 percent of school-aged children have been diagnosed. Since 1980, the biggest growth in asthma cases has been in children under 5.Īsthma is a chronic lung disease affecting ten percent of school-aged children in the United States.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |