EDUCATION: URBANMAAP

Asthma Survey Project: New York City, Winter and Spring 2001

The UrbanMAAP asthma survey data collected during Winter and Spring 2001 in New York City can be accessed for each participating school listed below. By clicking on the school name, you will be able to download a file with the asthma survey data collected from any school site. Data collected with hand-held sunphotometers during the Spring 2001 Intensive Observation Period (IOP) can also be downloaded for most of the schools on this map. These data are the optical depths calculated from the instrument measurements at each school site.

About the 2001 Asthma Survey Data

The asthma survey data was collected from eight senior high schools and one junior high school in New York City. Approval to conduct the asthma survey was obtained from the Board of Education Division of Assessment and Accountability. Students participating in the survey were given a parental passive consent form in order to provide their parents the option not to have them participate. At Townsend Harris High School students were required to obtain parental consent in order to take the survey. This may have introduced a bias to the Townsend data set.

Two different surveys were used, one for the Winter 2001 survey administered in February and another for the Spring 2001 survey administered in May. Teams of teachers and students at each school gave the survey to a random group of 200-700 students. Typically, a school conducted the survey in science classes for particular grade levels. Students responded to the survey, self-reporting demographic and asthma information to describe themselves and their family members.

Student volunteers entered the majority of asthma data. This should be considered a preliminary data set that has only been partially analyzed to remove uncertain data. A description of the data limitations and uncertainties is provided below. Please read this carefully and be sure to refer to this text in presenting any research findings associated with this data set.

Data files. The asthma survey data is organized by school in Excel Spreadsheets that can be easily downloaded and analyzed. Student responses to each survey question are provided. The data can be analyzed on several geographic scales, e.g. by school and/or home zip code or grouped for a borough-level study.

Spring 2001 Data Limitations and Uncertainty

Please download the spring 2001 survey and codes before reading further.

1. Some survey questions were not answered. For example, several students did not know their parents level of education or their home zip code. In these cases of no response, the field is left blank.
2. Two responses checked for Question #3 concerning race. In this case, the field is entered ME or multi-ethnic.
3. In cases where two responses were provided to Question #6 on parentsŐ level of education, the highest level of education checked was entered.
4. Some students who responded that they do not have asthma also indicated that a doctor told them that they have asthma. In these cases, the student was treated as if they do not have asthma. However, at least two students indicated they had asthma "and grew out of it."
5. Some students responded that they do not have asthma but completed the remainder of the survey as if they had asthma. For the preliminary Spring 2001 data analysis, these students should be counted among those who do have asthma. In presenting results, be sure to indicate the number of students in your data set that fall into this category.
6. Conflicting responses were provided for question #11 and #12. In a few cases, a student indicates the greatest number of asthma attacks they had in a particular season (#11) and this differs from season they indicate when they experience the most asthma attacks (#12). For these cases use the data provided in question #11 and indicate the number of conflicting responses in the data set.
7. Some respondents to Question #11 indicated they had zero attacks in all seasons and then in Question #12 selected a season when their attacks are most frequent. THESE DATA MUST BE DELETED AND CANNOT BE USED IN DATA ANALYSIS.
8. Two responses to Question #12 - Season of most frequent asthma attacks. Both seasons are entered for the field. For example, if a student checked Fall and Winter, the field is F/W.
9. Surveys completed by adults were discarded.

Winter 2001 Data Limitations and Uncertainty

Please download the winter 2001 survey and codes before reading further.

1. Some students may have confused Question # 12 - "Do you currently have asthma?" to mean are they having an asthma attack or problem. Students, who answered "no" to Question #12 but continued to answer the survey as if they have asthma, will be included in asthma burden statistics derived from the remaining survey questions.
2. When there is more than one response to a question that asks the students to select one answer, the field is left blank. In the Spring 2001 Survey, both responses are indicated.
3. Some students who responded that they do not have asthma also indicated that a doctor told them that they have asthma. In these cases, the student was treated as if they do not have asthma. However, we believe based on Spring 2001 survey responses that some of these students may have had asthma at one time.
4. Students who indicated that they had x# of asthma attacks in a particular season (Question # 15) and then left the season in which the experience most of their attacks blank (Question #16), should not be counted as reliable data.

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