Asthma: international comparisons
The most important source of data on international variations in asthma is the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) survey. Phase 3 of this survey (Lai et al, 2009 - see key references) included children aged 13 - 14 years from 233 centres in 97 countries and children aged 6 - 7 years from 144 centres in 61 countries.
The ISAAC Programme formally finished in December 2012 with a new Global Asthma Network created the same year; by June 2018, the network included 353 centres in 135 countries. The Global Asthma Network aims to continue the work of the ISAAC programme, with surveys beginning in 2017, and has published Global Asthma Reports in 2011, 2014, and 2018. Innes Asher et al published the first prevalence data collected by the network in 2021 (see key references).
The European Community Respiratory Health Survey has produced reports on surveys conducted across Europe using standardised questionnaires. ECRHS II is a prospective survey of around 10,000 adults which aimed to collect data from 29 centres in 14 mostly European countries.
Worldwide, the highest asthma prevalence occurs in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada and the US. Data from the ISAAC surveys of 6-7 year old and 13-14 year old children showed very wide variations in asthma frequency between countries, though much less variation within countries. The prevalence of current wheeze among Scottish children aged 13-14 years was 27.8%, similar to that of the UK as a whole (24.7%) but higher than that for Western Europe (14.3%). More details of these results are reported in appendix 2 of Lai et al 2009 (see key references).
Comparison of results between the 1995 and 2002 ISAAC surveys in Scotland shows an annual (absolute) fall of 1.28% in the prevalence of wheezing in the past 12 months among children aged 13 - 14 years in Scotland, with a similar pattern in the rest of the UK. Full details of these results are presented in the appendix to Pearce et al (2007, see key references).
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