Childhood asthma

Over the years, Asthma UK has spent millions of pounds on research to improve the diagnosis and treatment of childhood asthma, research that is already improving the lives of children in the UK.

We believe that the only way to prevent and cure childhood asthma is through high quality research to understand its causes and develop new treatments.

Asthma UK research is already having an impact. For example, in June 2004, Asthma UK researchers showed that childhood vaccinations do not increase the risk of asthma by analysing medical records from almost 30,000 children.

And, in January 2009, Professor Jonathan Grigg and colleagues cleared up a long standing controversy as to whether steroid treatments are helpful for young wheezy children.

Later in 2009, Professor Janet Stocks published electronic growth charts that will help doctors monitor children's lungs and help them to quickly spot any signs of asthma. The Asthma UK Growth Chart Initiative has now grown to be the world's largest collection of lung function measurements in very young children.

Preliminary results suggest that these charts will fundamentally improve the management of respiratory diseases in children and they have already been adopted in several hospital departments.

In 2010, following on from Professor Stocks' previous work, she embarked on a new project to develop growth charts for children from Black and Carribean backgrounds.