CHILDRENS AIRWAY FIRST FOUNDATION

CAFF continued to build and improve its world class web site during the year to serve as a reliable source of information for parents, doctors, dentists, medical professionals, public health officials and educators. Medical papers, books, and recent articles on airway are sourced for easy access. The web site became operational in the late Spring 2021 and is continually being improved upon. Site visits continue to increase and have registered into the thousands. In addition to visitors from the United States, they come from all over the world with heavy traffic from China, India, and the Middle East where airway disorders are prevalent. The site received a major upgrade during the year to support mobile access. During 2024, resources were expended to further develop the source listing of airway centric dentists to which parents could refer should they notice airway issues in their children. Since airway centric dentists are sparse, a listing is necessary when parents seek to find "who to call". Often, pediatricians have not been trained to diagnose breathing issues and also are at a loss of where to refer patients. It is estimated that the listing has already been helpful to many parents seeking help for children with airway issue symptoms. Efforts will continue to make the directory more useful for parents to find pediatric airway specialists.

One of the first priorities was to assemble top advisory board members comprised of a diverse set of medical, dental, insurance and public health professionals. The idea was to integrate the various areas of health expertise to cover airway disorders. This was accomplished with luminaries in the field accepting appointments as identified on the CAFF web site. With a broad breadth of experience assembled, CAFF is facilitating a systemic approach to identifying children at all ages who have airway disorders affecting their life-long health. The goal is to screen, evaluate and treat all children with airway disorders. Four hundred million children worldwide are estimated to suffer some degree of breathing disorder. In 2024 several new advisory board members were appointed to broaden the expertise available to CAFF. Quarterly advisory board meetings were held to disseminate and share the latest research concerning airway issues. Work is currently ongoing to develop an infant airway screening protocol where every newborn will be screened at birth. Work also is being conducted to create an airway center of excellence which would develop standards of care in diagnosing and treating children with breathing disorders as well as being resident to medical specialists dealing with the most complex breathing issues.