Asthma is a disease which, beginning in the 1980s, increased in the United States and other countries in both its prevalence and mortality. According to reports by the Center for Disease Control, the number of people with asthma increased by 42% in the last decade, with children, ethnic minorities and the urban poor being most at risk.Timely research on the causes and mechanisms behind the dramatic increase of asthma in the United States and other nations-to epidemic proportions-is presented in this volume. Investigators heading up eight research groups in asthma and/or allergy present their most recent findings, funded by the Center for Indoor Air Research. In addition to the work underway and discussions/suggestions on present research problems, ASTHMA: Causes and Mechanisms of an Epidemic Inflammatory Disease provides a chapter on the causes of asthma-and the reasons for its recent spread, so hotly discussed in the current literature.Researchers in the fields of asthma and allergy, health care providers, and others who follow research in either of these two developing areas will benefit from this book. The book is written at the level of one investigator to another.