How should asthma be defined in population studies? The question is deceptively simple, and its answer remains elusive. Since questionnaires are the most practical tools to use in screening populations for asthma, much attention has focused on developing survey definitions of asthma based on questionnaires. In general, the approach to validating such definitions has been to assess the ability of individual questions and combinations of questions to predict which individuals in a population have either clinical diagnoses of asthma or nonspecific bronchial hyperreactivity (BHR) to agents such as histamine or methacholine. Unfortunately, physicians' diagnoses of asthma and BHR are not particularly good "gold standards" for identification of asthma. It is likely that a physician's diagnosis of asthma underdetects subclinical mild asthma. Thus, using it as a "gold standard" will tend to underestimate the specificity of a questionnaire. In contrast, BHR is present in many people without asthma. Therefore, use of BHR as a "gold standard" will underestimate sensitivity.
Dr. Weissman, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1095 Willowdale Road, MS L-4218, Morgantown, WV 26505, USA
CODEN
CHETBF
Publication Date
20020101
Document Type
Other
Email Address
dweissman@cdc.gov
Fiscal Year
2002
Issue of Publication
1
ISSN
0012-3692
NIOSH Division
HELD
Priority Area
Disease and Injury: Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.