Welcome to the Asthma Birth Cohorts Database

Asthma and allergy birth cohorts increasingly provide new insights into the development and natural history of the diseases. Over 130 birth cohorts focusing on asthma and allergy have been initiated in the last 30 years. A NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), NHLBI (National Heart Lung and Blood Institute), MeDALL (Mechanisms of the Development of Allergy, FP7) joint workshop was held in Bethesda, Maryland September 11-12, 2012 with three objectives: (1) documenting the knowledge that asthma/allergy birth cohorts have provided; (2) identifying the knowledge gaps and inconsistencies; and (3) developing strategies for moving forward, including potential new study designs and the harmonization of existing asthma birth cohort data. The meeting was organized around the presentations of five distinct workgroups: (1) clinical phenotypes; (2) mechanisms and risk factors; (3) immune development of asthma and allergy; (4) pulmonary development; and (5) harmonization of existing birth cohorts. The report of the workshop is published and is available at the following link: Asthma Birth Cohorts Workshop Report. The database was created as a result of the workshop to encourage sharing of information among birth cohorts.

The website contains tables which: (1) describes the characteristics (contact point, location, sample size, retention, population, etc.) of the birth cohort; (2) details data collection (spirometry, skin testing, home allergens, DNA, etc.) at differing ages; (3) provides a selected bibliography of key publications provided by the participating birth cohorts; and (4) includes a search function which allows you to search across birth cohorts.

An explanation of how to navigate the site and use the search and export features is included in the Help section: Help

Search the list of cohorts

View/print the total list of cohorts