Shield - Surveillance Scheme for Occupational Asthma

Shield is the Midland Thoracic Society's Surveillance Scheme of Occupational Asthma. The scheme, which was set up in January 1989, was established to meet three main objectives. 1) To study the general and specific incidence of occupational asthma within a defined geographic area, 2) To determine proposed mechanisms of asthma, and 3) to determine the employment state of workers at diagnosis. Chest physicians, the Medical Boarding Centre (respiratory disease), and members of the West Midlands Group of the Society of Occupational Medicine implemented the scheme, by reporting each new case using a questionnaire format. The questionnaire covers personal information on the patient, details of the diagnosis, information about their occupational history, and the outcome after diagnosis.

Shield Notification

The notification system for Shield involves sending a monthly letter to participating members. Any members who have encountered a patient with occupational asthma then fill in a Shield form and post it back. The information on the form is then entered into our database and used to create the yearly reports and to generally further the aims of the Shield project.

This process will soon be mostly electronic and be administered through this website. Monthly emails will be sent to all notifiers who can then download Shield forms and return them through the post. To make this even more convenient we are currently looking for funding for a version of the Shield form that can be filled in online.

View the Shield form. This is in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. It should be printed, filled in and posted back to us. Consent should be gained for every patient submitted to Shield. The consent form (PDF) should be printed out and signed. The form contains information to help the patient decide whether they wish to give consent for Shield and refers them to this website for further information.