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Personnel

• Prof Dr Elena G Kondiourina

Why was this centre selected for ISAAC?

Novosibirsk is a large industrial, administrative and geographical center of West Siberia. It is the center for highways and railways, it has a river port and international airport. The peculiar feature is its territory (the territory of the city was 483 square kilometers in 1995) and the significant difference in the state of environmental characteristics of different areas. The population of the Novosibirsk city was 1368,5 thousand people including 251,8 children during the survey. Being located in the South-East of the West-Siberian plain, on both banks of the river Ob the city has a continental climate and is characterized by the increased potential for air pollution. The main sources for the air pollution are fuel and energy industry, the industry which produce building materials, black and non-ferrous metal industries, radio-electronic industry, engineering industry, chemical industry, light and food industry, railway and automobile transport.

Our experience of ISAAC

Phase One:

7404 pupils from 30 schools in 10 Novosibirsk districts (3695 pupils at the age of 6-7 years old, 3709 pupils at the age of 13-14 years old) have been interviewed with the strict observance of all requirements of ISAAC protocol from January till April 1996.

The specific feature in the study of the bronchial asthma epidemiology in Novosibirsk which was carried out according to the ISAAC program was the linguistic adaptation of a written questionnaire in order to reproduce the original text. For this purpose, the questions have been translated and formulated in Russian and later translated into the English language. They have been compared with the original variant and the necessary corrections have been done. The number of examined first-year pupils in Novosibirsk was larger according to the ISAAC protocol than the number of pupils which our center provided as a result. This is due to the fact that mainly children at the age of 7-8 years old study at school and the prevalence of children at the age of 6 years old is less than 20%.

Phase Three:

6746 pupils (2868 pupils at the age of 6-7 years old, 3878 pupils at the age of 13-14 years old) have been interviewed in schools of Novosibirsk from January till April 2002.

The study has been carried at the same schools as we have done during the phase one. But, due to the demographic "collapse" which was characterized by the decline of birth, there weren't 3000 pupils at this schools. That is why we included children from other schools.

In comparison with the first stage the prevalence of the symptoms of the bronchial asthma, bronchial spasm of physical exertion, episodes of cough at night among the pupils of Novosibirsk decreased. The indications for the frequent exacerbation, frequent night symptoms remained stable, the diagnostics of bronchial asthma increased.