Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
Institute of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Allergy. 2017 Jun;72(6):849-856. doi: 10.1111/all.13123. Epub 2017 Jan 24.
There is a substantial body of evidence on the epidemiology of allergic conditions, which has advanced the understanding of these conditions. We aimed to systematically identify systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the epidemiology of allergic diseases to assess what has been studied comprehensively and what areas might benefit from further research.
We searched PubMed and EMBASE up to 12/2014 for systematic reviews on epidemiological research on allergic diseases. We indexed diseases and topics covered and extracted data on the search characteristics of each systematic review.
The search resulted in 3991 entries after removing duplicates, plus 20 other items found via references and conference abstracts; 421 systematic reviews were relevant and included in this overview. The majority contained some evidence on asthma (72.9%). Allergic rhinitis, atopic eczema and food hypersensitivity were covered in 15.7%, 24.5% and 9.0%, respectively. Commonly studied risk factors for atopic eczema included dietary and microbial factors, while for asthma, pollution and genetic factors were often investigated in systematic reviews. There was some indication of differing search characteristics across topics.
We present a comprehensive overview with an indexed database of published systematic reviews in allergy epidemiology. We believe that this clarifies where most research interest has focussed and which areas could benefit from further research. We propose that this effort is updated every few years to include the most recently published evidence and to extend the search to an even broader list of hypersensitivity/allergic disorders.
有大量关于过敏症流行病学的证据，这些证据提高了人们对这些疾病的认识。我们旨在系统地确定过敏疾病的流行病学系统评价和荟萃分析，以评估哪些方面已经得到了全面研究，哪些方面可能需要进一步研究。
我们检索了 PubMed 和 EMBASE，截至 2014 年 12 月，以查找关于过敏疾病的流行病学研究的系统评价。我们对索引疾病和涵盖的主题进行了索引，并提取了每个系统评价的搜索特征数据。
在去除重复项后，搜索结果得到了 3991 项，另外通过参考文献和会议摘要找到了 20 项其他项目；421 项系统评价与本综述相关并包含在内。其中大部分包含了一些关于哮喘的证据（72.9%）。过敏性鼻炎、特应性皮炎和食物过敏分别占 15.7%、24.5%和 9.0%。特应性皮炎的常见研究风险因素包括饮食和微生物因素，而哮喘的系统评价中经常研究污染和遗传因素。不同主题的搜索特征存在一些差异。
我们提出了一个全面的概述，并提供了一个索引数据库，其中包含了过敏症流行病学的已发表系统评价。我们认为，这明确了大多数研究兴趣所在，以及哪些领域可能需要进一步研究。我们建议每隔几年更新一次这项工作，以纳入最新发表的证据，并将搜索范围扩大到更广泛的过敏/过敏障碍列表。
