Longitudinal Study of Asthma From Birth to Adulthood

BACKGROUND:

The population under study is the cohort from Tucson Children's Respiratory Study (CRS), which began in 1980.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

The longitudinal study follows a birth cohort of children, initially established in the 1980s. The study period took the children through their 16th birthday, when a comprehensive respiratory and allergy assessment was conducted. This extended follow-up took the cohort from birth to an age at which lung growth is virtually complete for girls and ending its most rapid phase for boys.

The resulting data set was used to test diverse hypotheses concerned with lower respiratory tract illnesses (LRI), asthma, wheezing, allergy, and smoking. There were four broad areas: 1) effects of LRI during the first three years of life and early and late symptoms and allergic sensitization on the picture of asthma; 2) changes during adolescence in symptoms and airways responsiveness; 3) the natural history of allergic sensitization and its relation to asthma and asthma-like symptoms; and 4) the change in longitudinal lung function and factors affecting the change.