The changing patterns of respiratory illnesses is coming under the spotlight in research being undertaken by the University of Aberdeen, involving over 5,000 Aberdeen school children who will take part in a new round of a long-running survey.
The research, funded by National Asthma Campaign Scotland, will provide a unique picture of the changing patterns of illness in school age children.
The project will be headed up by Dr Geraldine McNeill, a Research Fellow at the University, and will involve updating the results of similar surveys carried out since 1964 to monitor trends in asthma prevalence in children in the later stages of primary school.
Dr McNeill, said: "The Aberdeen surveys are particularly useful because the questions asked are exactly the same in all the surveys. The questions are designed to obtain information on all wheeze and on wheeze only with a cold, or wheezy bronchitis. Data collected up until 1999 suggests that while wheezing has increased almost three-fold, there has been no change in the proportion of children with wheezy bronchitis, suggesting that the major increase has been in allergic asthma.
"There have also been substantial increases in the related allergic conditions of hay fever and eczema. Another interesting pattern in the survey is that the increase in asthma in girls has been greater than that in boys, so that now asthma is equally common in girls and boys."
Said Marjory Burns, Director, National Asthma Campaign Scotland: "Surveys of asthma in school age children have shown a dramatic increase in the number of cases in the last 40 years.
"The results of this survey will offer us a snapshot of comparable groups of children through time, which will tell us whether asthma has gone up, down, or stayed the same. It also gives us the best up to date monitoring and information available on asthma trends and prevalence."
All the surveys have used the same geographical area of schools within the 1964 city boundary. The new survey will be carried out in May 2004, in line will previous surveys.