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Clinical investigationsAsthmaIncidence and Prevalence of Asthma Among Adult Finnish Men and Women of the Finnish Twin Cohort From 1975 to 1990, and Their Relation to Hay Fever and Chronic Bronchitis
Section snippets
Study Population
The study population was based on the Finnish Twin Cohort, which consists primarily of adult twin pairs with both members born before 1958 and alive in 1967. Pairs of individuals with the same birth date and sex, as well as the same surname and local community at birth, were identified from the Central Population Registry of Finland.19 These selection criteria also captured a small number of unrelated individuals. A postal questionnaire was sent to cohort members in the autumn of 1975 (response
Results
The three questionnaires permitted assessment of stability of response to the disease questions. Of those reporting asthma in 1975, 10 of 53 men (19%) and 9 of 50 women (18%) no longer reported it either in 1981 or in 1990. Furthermore, 13 of 53 men (25%) and 6 of 50 women (12%) reported asthma only in one of the later questionnaires. Among those subjects not reporting asthma in 1975, 11 of 29 men (38%) and 22 of 53 women (42%) who reported asthma in 1981 no longer reported it in 1990; among
Discussion
Because our study population consisted of young and middle-aged adults who were all ≤ 60 years at the end of the follow-up, we avoided most diagnostic problems common among the elderly. Subjects reporting the study diseases in the first questionnaire in 1975 were excluded from the incidence analyses. It is possible that some of the diseases diagnosed in childhood were not reported in 1975 because they were in remission or forgotten. As Grol et al26 have recently concluded, disappearance of
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The work was performed at the Department of Public Health, Universityof Helsinki. Supported by the Finnish Anti-Tuberculosis Association Foundation, the Ida Montin Foundation, the Finnish Foundation for Allergy Research, and the Academy of Finland (grants 38332, 42044).