Office-Based Asthma Screening Intervention

In prior work, we found that even children who have been seen by their physicians within the prior six months were frequently misclassified as having mild rather than persistent asthma. This study evaluations whether systematic office-based screening assists primary care physicians in identifying children with significant asthma and improves preventive care for asthma. We hypothesize that standardized screening in the office setting will improve the physician's ability to (a) identify children with significant asthma and (b) prescribe appropriate preventive medications.