ISAAC International Data Centres

Following the completion of these tasks for most Phase One centres, the IIDC had an important role in the analysis of Phase One data, preparation of data tables, maps and graphs, and preparation of papers for publication. The IIDC also had a similar important role in the preparation of the Phase One ecological analysis papers.

From 1999 the IIDC began to again receive data from the ISAAC Phase Three centres. Similar data and methodology checks were carried out for the Phase Three data. The greater participation in Phase Three meant that these checks did take a longer period than for Phase One and the preparation of publications presenting the Phase Three data did not begin until 2005. Since then the data centre has again been working to analyse and present the Phase Three data. Phase Three also included an environmental questionnaire and there has been a significant further effort required to analyse and present that data.

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In Autumn 2002, organised by Clarissa, we held the ISAAC Phase Two Meeting with representatives from all study centres. It was a very informative and productive meeting and at the same time the exciting opportunity to get to meet all these people you just previously knew from e-mail exchange.

It took about another two years of solid and devoted work to compile the international data set and bring it into a form that could be reliably used for data analysis. In parallel, we had been developing statistical analysis tools to deal with the complexities of the data set, in particular the weighting procedures to take account of the stratified sub-sample used in Phase Two, and to incorporate all these particularities into SAS-Macros to allow the efficient analyses of the numerous centres.

So in 2004 just in time for the final report for the part of the project that had received funding from the EU, we could finally do the first analyses. With these first results we convened the first Meeting of the Phase Two Publication Group which at the time consisted of Stephan Weiland, Erika von Mutius, Bengt Björkstén, Bert Brunekreef, Bill Cookson, Francesco Forastiere and David Strachan. On this Meeting the outline of the publications to follow was developed. Work started with the publication round looking at the association of atopy with the disease outcome – the asthma paper being the first one to be developed fully but also being fuelled at the same time by discussion on the other papers – in collaboration with Hywell Williams and Carsten Flohr, at the time Hywell’s PhD-student, for the eczema paper and with Francesco Forastiere for the rhinitis paper. This was the time when we realised the full importance of the nonatopic part of disease and as well the concomitant variation of the association atopy-disease in the international context that seems to be in part related to the state of affluence of the country.

In the mean-time changes occurred at the data centre: Claudia and Peter left in 2004/2005 and we were joined by Andrea Kleiner for data management, programming and performing statistical analysis and by Gabriele Nagel, a MPH with a medical background who had previously worked with EPIC.

Analyses continued, mainly with the three above papers, the corresponding paper for BHR, and Gabriele starting to look at the influence of breastfeeding on asthma. Also initiated were the Genetics analyses with mainly Jill Cantelmo and Miriam Moffat to be joined later on by Jon Genuneit, a medical doctor that had joined a already during his training in Ulm - initially for his medical doctors thesis.

In February 2007 we got the good news that the asthma paper had been accepted by the AJRCCM – news that, very unusually, were celebrated in the library with a glass of Champagne and reflected all the “heartblood” as you say in German, i.e. the high amount of passion and thought, that Stephan Weiland had devoted to this first scientific output of Phase Two. It was only a month later, after having read the first draft of the Rhinits paper, that he died completely unexpectedly on 19th of March. This shock deeply hit the whole department missing in addition to his excellent scientific guidance his enthusiastic and humane nature.

It left us with the desire to do our very best to continue this central piece of his work in his sense. In this endeavour we were wonderfully supported by the group and in particular by David Strachan who took over the role as Phase Two Coordinator. This helped us markedly not to only complete the work already started with Stephan Weiland but also to embark for new endeavours such as the round of overview papers sparked by Erika von Mutius during a discussion with David and the group in Ulm.
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In Phase One the principle method of communication with the Principal Investigators was by fax machine. It is amusing now to reflect on the amount of time spent standing beside the fax machine sending the centre report to collaborators, almost holding one’s breath in case the fax failed to send, (which it did on frequent occasions) and having to start all over again. Tadd also was an ‘avid’ user of the fax machine for his communications regarding the Phase One data checking and had similar experiences. When receiving documents back from the centres we would at times find pages missing due to failed fax attempts from the centres, which was as frustrating to the collaborators as to us in Auckland. As the fieldwork in Auckland was being undertaken I decided to document the methodology used to approach the schools and how it was undertaken in the schools. It became apparent that this information would be useful for other fieldworkers and these guidelines were subsequently circulated to the centres and made available from the ISAAC website (/phases/phaseone/fieldguide/young.html). These have become a useful tool in assisting centres to follow the ISAAC protocol.

For Phase Three, the use of email had gained popularity and communicating with the centre Principal Investigators and collaborators became a lot less difficult. The centre report had been evaluated and was simplified for ease of understanding. This made it a lengthier document, so having email as the predominant mode of document transfer made life for the IIDC much easier (and less breath holding!).

The experience that Tadd and I have had communicating with the Phase One and Three Principal Investigators and collaborators has simply been a privilege. We have built up an amazing rapport with so many people, from so many different ethnically diverse communities. Due to the stability of the Data Manager and Research Manager, this rapport strengthened over time. With the ISAAC English language questionnaire having being translated into 53 languages, it would not be uncommon for misunderstandings to regularly occur. Although these did happen at times, usually about what the IIDC actually required, these were rare and very easily sorted out. It is humbling to have English as our primary language and have collaborators with English as a second language so enthusiastically embrace our language and have the determination to undertake the ISAAC fieldwork in their centre and to adhere to our documentation written in English. The international success of ISAAC is a tribute to the entire ISAAC worldwide collaboration.
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