New Jersey gets high marks for the way its schools handle allergies and asthma 

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EpiPen (Photo courtesy of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America)
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Eight states, including New Jersey, and the District of Columbia are named in the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America's State Honor Roll report for their leadership and progress on policies protecting students with asthma and allergies. The report took a look at the polices in place at more than 100,000 schools across the nation.

According to the report, New Jersey made the grade in 20 of 23 core policy standards for dealing with asthma and allergies in school. New Jersey gets high marks for several policies, including allowing students to bring their medications to class and for exhibiting an understanding of their health problems. The state also scored high for keeping and maintaining school health records for those students with asthma or allergies, and for implementing environmental policies to help ease asthma and allergies.

"New Jersey has been very progressive about taking a holistic, comprehensive look at asthma and allergies," said Charlotte Collins, senior vice president for policy and programs at AAFA.

Despite the high marks, New Jersey does have some improving to do. "In New Jersey, school nursing is very strong compared to other states in the country but we would like to see at least one school nurse in every school building," Collins said.

Collins also said there is a need for schools to begin stocking some of the most critically used asthma and allergy antidotes to stem the severity of sudden attacks by children in school.

Eight million school children struggle with asthma in the U.S., and another 13 million have some kind of allergy.

 

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