Asthma is a leading chronic condition among school-aged children and a major driver of absenteeism. Since attendance is linked to academic success, graduation, and earnings, interventions reducing asthma-related absences may improve educational trajectories. We evaluate a program that placed asthma case managers in New York City public schools to engage directly with students and families. Using novel linked health-education data and a triple-differences design exploiting staggered rollout and asthma targeting, we find significant gains in school-based asthma management: absenteeism among children with asthma fell by 5%, narrowing the asthma/no-asthma gap by 20%, and active asthma prescriptions rose by nearly 10%. These results show that school-embedded supports can improve children’s health while also boosting educational outcomes.
Fitzpatrick et al. (Thu,) studied this question.