Faculty at Saint Louis University are helping to develop a system to warn asthma sufferers when outdoor conditions could trigger an attack.
Saint Louis University health information technology expert Mark Gaynor says the first step is to build a geographic database. It will include asthma-related emergency room visits, air quality conditions, and even asthma-related Google searches.
“And then the idea is to put all of these things together, along with your particular type of asthma, and try to build an alert system that will look at all these conditions together and try to tell you that in certain areas you’re going to have problems or you’re not going to have problems,” Gaynor said.
Gaynor says the end products will be a web-based program and a smart-phone app showing a dynamic map tailored to each user’s asthma triggers, showing geographic zones of high risk.
“It might be your city, it might be someplace that you’re planning on going, but you’ll be able to zero-in on any area,” Gaynor said. “And it will look at your particular condition and tell you if you might have a particular problem in that particular area.”
Gaynor says St. Louis is among the top 10 worst cities for asthma in the U.S.
SLU, the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and Harvard University will collaborate on the project, which is being funded in part by a $93,000 start-up grant from Google.