Resumen de Environmental Epidemiology of Pediatric Asthma and Allergy
Christine Cole Johnson, Dennis R. Ownby
In a 2001 clinically oriented review, Busse and Lemanske defined asthma as “a complex syndrome with many clinical phenotypes in both adults and children. Its major characteristics include a variable degree of airflow obstruction, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and airway inflammation” (1, p. 350). They concluded that, for many people, the disease begins in infancy and that a genetic propensity to be allergic, combined with environmental exposures, contributes to disease development. Symptoms of asthma are exacerbated by exercise, strong emotions, viral infection, airborne allergen exposure, airborne pollutants, and change in the weather (2).
The first studies of allergy appeared in print in the 1870s, and recognition of asthma is evident from ancient writings, but population studies of these conditions have become common just since the 1970s (3–5). Thus, the epidemiologic study of asthma and allergies, relative to other major chronic conditions, is in its infancy. The challenges posed are somewhat unique compared with the more extensively studied chronic illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. The most significant and as-yet unsolved methodological issue is one fundamental to the conduct of epidemiology: arriving at a definition of disease.
