Delivery of prevention and care to asthmatic children.

Asthma-induced mortality increases especially among children; asthma induced morbidity impairs their day-to-day life as well as both their physical and psychological development. The treatment of asthma in children should reduce their symptoms. Although asthma medication appears to be efficient in clinical trials such is not the case in clinical practice and public health. The use of drugs and services depends upon the severity of the disease as well as upon cultural, personal and familial factors. These factors are crucial in the spontaneously inconsistent evolution of this disease. The management of asthmatic children should thus aim: 1) to alter behaviors--of both the patients and their parents who are often in charge of the treatment on a day-to-day basis and of the physician in order to organize a comprehensive therapeutic project for the sick children; 2) to enhance the collaboration between the different paramedical people involved in the treatment; 3) to improve the efficiency of the health system to allow it to achieve its goal of providing high-standard, accessible health care.