Diverging trends of respiratory allergies and eczema in Greek schoolchildren: Six surveys during 1991-2018.

The prevalence of childhood asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and eczema in the city of Patras, Greece, has been followed in four consecutive surveys since 1991. After a continuous rise in the prevalence of all three of these disorders, a plateau was reached for asthma between 2003 and 2008, whereas the prevalence of rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema continued to increase. To investigate these trends in the same population into the following decade.

Changing trends in the prevalence of childhood asthma over 40 years in Greece.

Background: A series of repeated questionnaire surveys among 8- to 9-year-old school children in the city of Patras, Greece, demonstrated a continuous rise in the prevalence of wheeze/asthma from 1978 to 2003, with a plateau between 2003 and 2008. We further investigated wheeze/asthma trends within the same environment over the last decade.

Methods: Two follow-up surveys were conducted in 2013 (N = 2554) and 2018 (N = 2648).