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When Nancy Sander sent her daughter to college a decade ago, she was delighted Brooke was in a non-smoking dorm where she wouldn't have to worry about smoke triggering asthma attacks.
But "non-smoking" did not really mean "non-smoking," and "Brooke ended up in the emergency room for the first time since she was 7," says Sander, founder of Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics in Fairfax, Va. It was just what parents of new students with asthma fear: For a lifetime, they've monitored medications, made doctors' appointments and provided homes where the allergens and irritants that can set off symptoms are kept to a minimum.

Then comes college — which can be hazardous at times for the healthiest kids. And this year, there's an added risk: outbreaks of H1N1 flu, expected to ignite as colleges open. People with asthma are at heightened risk for complications and death from any flu.