Aracaju Centre

Personnel

• Dra Jackeline Machado Motta Franco

The Northeast region of Brazil comprises nine states, where a population of 50 million people lives in an area of 1,561,177 km². A tropical climate predominates with large inland areas of semiarid land and dry weather, and much more humid coastal areas. There are marked socioeconomic disparities in this part of Brazil, which is regarded as the least developed and poorest region of the country.

Sergipe is the smallest state in the Northeast. Its capital city, Aracaju, is considered to be the state capital with the lowest economic inequality in the region, as well as with the healthiest lifestyles in the country and the lowest number of smokers, according to the national Ministry of Health. With a population of 461,534 people in the year 2000 (coming to over 570,000 in 2010, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics census of 2010), distributed throughout 174 km², Aracaju has a high population density of over 3,100 inhabitants/km² and human development index of 0.794 (IBGE/PNAD, 2000).

In 2002-2003, the ISAAC phase three was undertaken in Aracaju and it was the first tool to improve knowledge on asthma prevalence in this city. We used the same ISAAC methodology established by the ISAAC International Data Center for all the centers in our region. The written questionnaires were previously validated for the Portuguese language and ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Federal University of Sergipe. The questionnaires were circulated among subjects of ages 6-7 and 13-14 years old. There was great difficulty in having the questionnaires for the group aged 6-7 returned, due to some cultural misinformation on the side of the public school mothers.

The study was encouraged by the ISAAC coordinator in Brazil, Dr. Dirceu Solé, who invited me to take part in the study, including the city of Aracaju as one of the centers in the Northeast of Brazil. The data collected was later used in the preparation of my master’s thesis.

The ISAAC has been an important milestone in the study of allergic conditions in the world. The conduction of this study in our city has also been considered a milestone, since it

contextualized Aracaju in the international panorama of the allergic diseases prevalence, thus enabling comparisons between our rates and those of other cities in the Northeast region, in the whole of Brazil and in the world.

This work has only been possible with the important help from another colleague: Dr. Ricardo Queiroz Gurgel MD, MSc, PhD, Department of Medicine and University Hospital, Federal University of Sergipe, Aracaju, Brazil.