Philippines, Asia-Pacific

Why was this centre selected for ISAAC?

Our country was selected to participate in both ISAAC Phase I and Phase III of the study. It started on a meeting in an asian respiratory disease convention in Tokyo in 1994. Dr Chrisopher Lai invited Dr Felicidad Cua-Lim, then the President of the National Asthma Movement in the Philippines, to be the National Coordinator and Principal Investigator for the ISAAC study Phase I in the Philippines.

Our experience of ISAAC

For Phase I Dr Felicidad Cua-Lim assembled her team whose members included Drs Camilo Roa, Jose Pepito Amores, Manuel Fereria, and Madeleine Sumpaico. The questionnaires, with the help of a social scientist Nina Carandang, were translated and back translated to the local dialect – Tagalog. The study was implemented in schools in Metro Manila. Both the data for the 6-7 years old and 13-14 years old were accepted for inclusion in the Lancet publication for the global coverage of the ISAAC study.

In the phase III Dr Cua-Lim was again invited to participate in the study. Dr Rodolfo Pagcatipunan became a member of her team. Aside from the core questionnaires, an environmental questionnaire was included in this phase which was again translated and back translated to the local dialect. Only the 13-14 years old data was accepted by the data center. There were data integrity problems encountered in the 6-7 years old. This was attributed to the initially low number of returned questionnaires or drop-outs. Upon consultation with a statistician, these drop-outs were replaced by another set of responders to attain the desired sample size.

The data generated from the phase I and III studies became the source of prevalence data for asthma and allergy in children in the Philippines. It also triggered the implementation of the National Asthma Prevalence Study, an asthma prevalence study for both adult and children sponsored by the Department of Health of the Philippines.