Asthma in primary school children in Australia

This article discusses the policies and guidelines for asthma management in primary school children in Australia. It covers the National Asthma Strategy 2018, NSW Government guideline, Asthma Guidelines for Victorian schools, South Australia Clinical Guideline, Greenvale Primary School Asthma Policy, and Toorak Primary School Asthma Policy. It also explores the principles of health promotion, primary healthcare, advocacy, equity, rights, and access with regards to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Running head: ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
Asthma in primary school children in Australia
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1ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the topic that will be reviewed:
Asthma in primary school children in Australia
Asthma policies regarding school children in Australia
Early stage of children’s life provides groundwork for their future development, well-
being and health. 1 out of 10 Australian children is diagnosed with asthma and it is one of the
most common reasons for their visit to hospital (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
2018). Presently, asthma has no cure. In this regard, Australian government and several
individual state have endorsed several policies for the prevention and well-being of children
suffering from asthma. Some of those policies are discussed below.
National Asthma Strategy 2018
The aim of this policy is to lessen the impacts of asthma in social, economic, and
health aspects and optimization of asthma management and diagnosis. Main focus of this
strategy is to better management of people suffering from asthma. This strategy follows eight
guiding principles regarding future actions related to chronic respiratory condition and
asthma. These eight guiding principle are equity for every Australians including aboriginals,
partnerships and collaboration, access, person centred approach, evidence based approach,
sustainability, transparency and accountability, and shared responsibility (National Asthma
Strategy 2018 2018).
New South Wales Government guideline for acute management of asthma
This policy aims to guide clear direction to all medical practitioner to provide best
possible service in every part of the state. This policy was created by clinical experts for the
NSW Department of Health. This is a guideline for suitable tactic for the management of
acute asthma in children and infants. This policy is basically a guide but not a strict

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authoritative protocol. This protocol is also placed in all the local clinical facilities and
hospitals to manage better and assess paediatric asthma patients which will be implemented
by the chief executives (Infants and Children - Acute Management of Asthma 2012).
Asthma Guidelines for Victorian schools by the Asthma Foundation, Victoria
Almost 90 percent of all government school in Victoria have a child enrolled who is
diagnosed with asthma. As asthma has no cure as of now, the effective ways to prevent
asthma are awareness, education and planning. This policy was developed to help the schools
with asthma student for better support and planning. This guidelines include detailed
information on preventive strategies, medical data regarding asthma, staff training,
communication plan, management policy for asthma, emergency asthma equipment, risk
management, and legal obligation for school. According to this guidelines, all school must
have adequate amount of emergency kit stored (Education.vic.gov.au 2018).
South Australia Clinical Guideline
This program was introduced by South Australia Child Health Clinical Network and
sanctioned by South Australia Health Safety & Strategic Governance Committee. This is a
fresh policy but updated and replaced an existing policy known as Management of Acute
Asthma in Children, WCH Guideline. Similarly like the previous policy, this policy also
mainly targeted at healthcare professionals working at any primary care, regional or general
hospitals. The goal of this guideline is to provide information about the minimum
requirement and assessment needed for management of acute asthma. This guideline applies
to all the health network inside South Australia. This guideline also excludes some scenario
which might need to manage differently than general such as infants under the age of 1 year
and patients with life threatening asthma admitted in ICU (Sahealth.sa.gov.au 2018).
Greenvale Primary School Asthma Policy

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Greenvale Primary School has ratified their asthma policy to guarantee the well-being
and health of the attending students. In this policy, the school has set up various
implementation steps for all the involved party which are school, staffs, students, and parents.
The school also have a written instruction manual to be followed in case of asthma
emergency (Asthma Policy 2015).
Toorak Primary School Asthma Policy
Similarly like the previous policy, Toorak primary school also have their own asthma
policy to ensure safety of their students in case of camps or excursion. According to their
policy, each student with asthma must have a written asthma management plan in accordance
with Asthma Victoria’s guidelines. They will also evaluate policy annually (Asthma 2016).
Principles of health promotion, primary healthcare and advocacy
Health sector has been being advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for
the last few decades to move into the direction of health promotion, apart from its duty to
provide curative and clinical services (Cyril, Smith and Renzaho 2015). One of the models
that can be applied to health promotion is known as Bensberg’s model of ‘Strategies for
Health Promotion’ (Lee et al. 2013). This model includes seven strategies for typical health
promotion regarding a particular population foci like children or young people. These seven
strategies regarding healthcare population have been discussed below.
Screening, risk assessment and immunization
The purpose of this step is to detect and assess an individual with pre-eminent risk
factors. Early stage detection is vital for preventing chronic diseases. Immunization also plays
a significant role in preventing a disease, but, at present, there is no cure or immunization for
asthma. As a result, only prevention and early detection can help and reduce the spread of
asthma.

4ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
Health information
Information can help an individual to understand cause of illness better as well as it
will help medical practitioner to take informed decision regarding the illness. For example,
television promotion in hospital or emergency department should help a parent to be better
informed about their child’s illness such as asthma (Lee et al. 2013).
Health education, development of skills and counselling
The target of this step is to persuade individuals to change their behaviour for
healthier lives. Counselling helps parents to take better and informed decision about their
child’s health. To cite one example, nurses in emergency department were provided with
thorough knowledge of asthma management to reduce its occurrence.
Community activity
Community activity encourages a community to use their own resources to sustain
and develop their own promotion strategies. Apart from that, trained community members
can be useful during busy times and can assist the nurses. They can also act as an advocate to
patients in non-medical concerns (Lee et al. 2013).
Social marketing
Goal of social marketing is to aware people about various health related issues and to
influence and persuade to change their daily habits. Hospitals, community services, and
healthcare personnel can distribute posters, pamphlets, and brochure related asthma to aware
parents about asthma prevention strategy (Lee et al. 2013).
Organisational development
Organisational development plays a vital role to ensure safe and supportive
environment for health promotion strategies. Also, development needed to tackle a particular

5ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
type of chronic disease. For instance, to handle asthma, a medical institution need to have
ample amount asthma emergency kit in their store to handle huge number of admittance.
Regulatory and economic activity
This step aims to promote and advocate for various legislative activities to promote
healthcare activities. Government can introduce specific act related to asthma which will
make nurses to learn asthma protection care mandatory by law (Lee et al. 2013).
According to WHO, advocacy means gaining political support, political comment and
social acceptance for a particular health issue by involving social and individual actions.
Advocacy can be implemented by using multimedia, mass media, community action or direct
political lobbying.
Principles of equity, rights and access with regards to Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander
Asthma is two time more prevalent in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
compared to non-aboriginal Australians (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018).
Along with that smoking rate, which is a major contributing factor for asthma, also much
higher in the amongst the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Studies have shown
that almost 45 percentage of aboriginal people aged 15 years or above smoke daily which is
two times more compared to the non-aboriginal people (Populations – Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples 2016). This is also true for people living in socio-economically
underprivileged area. Mortality rate of asthma is also higher in case aboriginal people
(Banham et al. 2017). Disparities in health among aboriginal and non-aboriginal Australians
have long been observed. Inequity between them is one of the significant factor behind it.
According to the researchers, only equality or equal access will not resolve this situation
because aboriginal Australians live much less privileged life compared to non-aboriginal

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Australians (Donato and Segal 2013). Researchers argued that they might need greater access
and more care for the same health issues (Baba, Brolan and Hill 2014). For instance, in the
state New South Wales, fund allocation takes the need of specific geographical region into
consideration. Indigenous or aboriginal people have greater need compared to non-aboriginal
Australians, so the allocation gets multiplied by 2.5 for them (Penno, Gauld and Audas 2013).
Along with that, Australian government have also started some health initiatives for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people such as Asthma Spacer Ordering System and
The Indigenous Chronic Disease Package. Asthma Spacer Ordering System offers low cost
asthma spacers to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people whereas The Indigenous
Chronic Disease Package offers support to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
with chronic disease or have high possibility of chronic disease (Populations – Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples 2016). Equitable service or access to healthcare does not
depends on individual’s fortune, paying ability or fame. This means an individual have
impartial access to the same resources as an individual with higher privilege, money or social
status. National Asthma Strategy of Australian government also have a national framework to
manage and optimise asthma diagnosis for vulnerable and less privileged people. They have
different policy and strategy with respect to different threat factors like population groups and
health conditions such as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan
2013–2023 (Health.gov.au 2018). In a nutshell, national resources must be set aside and
allocate them appropriate and quality manner to the people with greater need. It also need
political direction that will help to strengthen the foundation and will work to build on it to
provide equitable healthcare for all Australians in need.

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