OASIS: A made-in-Ontario asthma monitoring system with big aspirations
My team, based at The Hospital for Sick Children, pioneered a population-based asthma registry called OASIS (Ontario Asthma Surveillance Information System). Established in 2003, OASIS follows over 2 million Ontarians with physician-diagnosed asthma and reports that 1 in 4 children are affected by asthma and 1 in 3 persons will develop asthma in their lifetime.
Today, OASIS is one of the most promising prototypes for the development of a national asthma monitoring system, providing asthma statistics including incidence, prevalence, mortality and health services use.
Our team also combines multiple population databases to study the impact of air pollution and climate on disease progression such as asthma to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. With this research, we aim to identify geographical regions and populations at risk (such as immigrants, lower socioeconomic groups) to target community-based interventions designed to reduce disease morbidity and to improve health outcomes and quality of life.
Sincerely,
Teresa To, M.Sc., PhD
Director, Ontario Asthma Surveillance Information System
Canada Research Chair in Asthma – Tier 1
Senior Scientist, The Hospital for Sick Children
Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto