First School Air Quality Flag in Stanislaus County to be Raised!
TURLOCK, CA (August 8, 2005) – The first air quality flag in Stanislaus County will be raised Monday, August 15th at Our Lady of Fatima School in Modesto, the Stanislaus County Asthma Coalition announced today. A flag-raising ceremony will be held promptly at 8:30 a.m. on the school campus, 505 West Granger Avenue in Modesto.
Because air quality in Stanislaus County is some of the worst in the nation, the Asthma Coalition initiated a flag program for the schools to alert students with asthma and allergies of the daily air quality. The non-profit MedicAlert®, whose mission is to protect and save lives, stepped in to provide the critical funding ($25,000) that allows for flags to be flown at all 245 schools in the county.
“By raising these flags, we hope to raise awareness and change routine behavior to help prevent or reduce the severity of asthma attacks,” said Wallace Carroll, MD, an allergist and Chairman of the Asthma Coalition. “If a student has asthma, the flag can help determine outdoor physical education activities. If it’s a bad air day, perhaps we can delay mowing the lawn or lighting the fireplace. There’s a lot we can all do to help reduce the number of missed school and work days due to asthma,” explains Carroll. “We are grateful to MedicAlert for providing the vital support for this initiative.”
“MedicAlert is pleased to sponsor this important community program by underwriting the cost of the flags for local schools,” said Paul Kortschak, MedicAlert President and CEO. “MedicAlert was founded in 1956 to protect and save lives because of a Turlock school child with an allergy, so it is fitting we provide our support. By working together with the Asthma Coalition, we hope to help the over 52,000 residents of Stanislaus County who have breathing-related medical conditions.”
The color-coded flags will serve as a visual communication device to alert parents, students, teachers, school staff, and surrounding neighborhoods of daily air pollution risks. Based on the Air Quality Index (AQI) of the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District, the flags will indicate Healthy Air (Green Flag), Moderate Air (Yellow), Poor Air for Sensitive Groups (Orange), or Unhealthy Air (Red). As a benefit to the community, some health organizations in the area will also start flying flags Monday, including the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency on Scenic Drive in Modesto and MedicAlert on Colorado Avenue in Turlock.
For more information, please contact Cindy Malekos at MedicAlert at 209/669-2412.
About Asthma in Stanislaus County
Over 33,000 people in Stanislaus County have asthma, more than 12,000 of which are children.
Nearly 5,000 people have Emphysema and over 14,000 have Chronic Bronchitis.
Stanislaus County rates in the Top 25 Most Polluted Metropolitan Areas for Short-Term (#11) and Year-Round (#17) Particle Pollution.
Asthma is the #1 cause of school absenteeism due to chronic disease.
*According to the American Lung Association’s 2004 State of the Air Report.
About the Stanislaus County Asthma Coalition
The Stanislaus County Asthma Coalition is comprised of 50 volunteer representatives from a wide array of organizations who are concerned about asthma. Its mission is to create an “asthma-friendly” community by promoting awareness, education, management and prevention.
About MedicAlert®
MedicAlert Foundation is a nonprofit healthcare informatics organization dedicated to providing services to members that protect and save lives. MedicAlert® services are built around a repository of health information that enables members to manage their personal health records while maintaining security, privacy and confidentiality. As the trusted third party custodian of comprehensive personal health information, the MedicAlert® repository can connect to and provide critical medical information between patients, providers, payers, and first responders 24 hours a day anywhere in the world. The premium placed on patient confidentiality has earned the trust of 4 million members and the healthcare community worldwide.
MedicAlert® is committed to providing technology-based solutions and is an active member and a leader in developing interoperability standards with all the major Healthcare IT standards organizations. The MedicAlert® repository uses web service interfaces to support standard Electronic Health Records (EHRs), including electronic drug prescriptions and for patient record interoperability. These activities will ensure the rapid development and deployment of standards to improve the quality of care, lower healthcare costs while increasing patient safety.
MedicAlert® is a nonprofit membership organization founded in Turlock, California, in 1956 with a mission to protect and save lives, is headquartered in the United States and has international affiliates in nine countries. Additional information about MedicAlert® is available at www.medicalert.org.
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