Racial and socioeconomic differences in school peanut-free policies

While many assume that more restrictive policies may reduce rates of allergic reactions,7 we showed that although schools with peanut-free tables had lower epinephrine administration rates, other peanut-restrictive policies did not affect epinephrine administration rates, suggesting difficulties enforcing school-wide bans.1 In a survey of school nurses, financial considerations, limited staff, and parent and administrative/staff resistance were barriers to implementing school food allergy policies.8 Further research is needed to understand how these aspects of school food allergy management may impact policies. [...]school nurses, with their integral role in managing food-allergic children, should provide an acceptable representation.1 Sociodemographic characteristics, food allergy policies, and rates and treatment of allergic reactions may differ between public and private schools, which may impact the generalizability of our findings, which were limited to public schools. Future research should focus on identifying evidence-based policies for preventing food-allergic reactions and anaphylaxis that can be easily adopted by all schools, regardless of student demographic characteristics and school financial and administrative resources.Online Repository Characteristic Schools responding to survey (n = 484) Schools not responding to survey (n = 1340) P value No. of students in school, median (IQR) 428 (295-625) 466 (314-631) .0651 Average class size, median (IQR) 18.9 (16.6-21.2) 19.6 (17.2-22.1) .0003 Low-income %, median (IQR) 28.5 (10.7-68.6) 25.3 (10.5-57.1) .1707 Race %, median (IQR)