Background and Objective: Asthma is a major health problem and a high-burden disease in the world. Unfortunately the prevalence of asthma in adult populations in Iran is not determined precisely. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of asthma symptoms and it’s relation with ages, gender and smoking behaviour in city of Tehran. Methods: A telephone interview survey was conducted am...

There has been considerable variation in the use of the symptom questions in the ECRHS. Many papers have reported results based on individual questions. Some of these have additionally reported results for symptom combinations, some have only reported symptom combinations, and some have included bronchial responsiveness in a definition of asthma. This discussion paper considers the pros and con...

No data have been reported on the prevalence of asthma in rural areas of China. The objective of the present study was to determine the prevalence of asthma-like symptoms, reported asthma and reported asthma attacks in rural Beijing, China, and to compare the prevalence in 20-44-yr-old participants with those reported for Canada and the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS). For ...

OBJECTIVE A study of 330 adults reported increased systolic blood pressure and higher hypertension prevalence rates in men with rhinitis. The authors replicated this study. DESIGN This cross-sectional study analysed data on blood pressure, medication and allergic rhinitis.Setting A random population-based sample was selected from the City of Augsburg, Germany. PARTICIPANTS Data from a popul...

Selected sets of reference values for forced spirometry derived from nonsmoking, white subjects [1] show marked differences among studies [2–6] in both predicted forced vital capacity (FVC) (up to 640 mL) and predicted forced expiratory volume during the first second (FEV1) (up to 310 mL). The magnitude of the differences among reference values gives rise to potential concerns for the clinical ...

BACKGROUND Respiratory symptoms are common in the general population, and their presence is related to Health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The objective was to describe the association of respiratory symptoms with HRQoL in subjects with and without asthma or COPD and to investigate the role of atopy, bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR), and lung function in HRQoL. METHODS The European Com...

BACKGROUND In epidemiological studies, continuous measures of asthma severity should be used to catch the heterogeneity of phenotypes. This study aimed at developing and validating continuous measures of asthma severity in adult patients with ever asthma from the general population, to be used in epidemiological studies. METHODS Respiratory symptoms, anti-asthmatic treatment and lung function...

In the three Italian centres involved in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS), prevalence of asthma-like symptoms was assessed through a mailback questionnaire. Since the nonresponse rate was not negligible, ranging 10-18%, we investigated whether nonresponse bias affected the results and, if so, whether the bias could be eliminated from the final estimates of prevalence. A ...

The present study investigated the relationship between socioeconomic status, using measures of occupational class and education level, and the prevalence and incidence of asthma (with and without atopy) and chronic bronchitis using data from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS). Asthma and chronic bronchitis were studied prospectively within the ECRHS (n = 9,023). Incidence...

The European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) II will determine the incidence of and risk factors for the development of allergic disease, atopy and rapid loss of lung function in middle-aged adults living in Europe. From 1991-1993, >18,000 individuals took part in ECRHS I and provided information on symptoms and exposure to known or suspected risk factors for asthma. Blood samples f...