Prevalence of allergic rhinitis in young adults in Italy M. Bugiani a, * , A. Carosso a , P. Piccioni a , E. Migliore a , A. Corsico b , M. Ferrari c , R. de Marco c on behalf of ISAYA (ECRHS Italy) Study Group a CPA-ASL 4 Turin, Italy b Pavia University, Italy c University of Verona, Italy 1. Introduction Allergic rhinitis (AR) is one of the more widespread respiratory diseases; it ranks high as a common disorder and affects individuals during their most productive years of childhood and young adulthood [1–13]. Estimated prevalence and incidence of allergic rhinitis are highly variable [1–8]. Although allergic rhinitis is not usually a severe disease, it significant- ly alters the social life of patients and affects school learning performance as well as work productivity: untreated patients suffer of sleep disturbance, practical, emotional and overall quality of life problems [1,2]. Moreover, the costs incurred by rhinitis are substantial. Allergic rhinitis has been identified as one of the top ten reasons for visits to primary care clinics [11]. Geographic variations of prevalence of allergic rhinitis are wide; however, much of this variation could be due to different characteristics of the samples studied or different methods to collect data. Previous studies [5,6] using a standardized and common case definition have demonstrated a wide geographic variation between and within nations in the prevalence of allergic sensitization and a similar pattern for symptoms of allergic rhinitis [3–5]. The aim of this study was to assess the geographic variations of AR prevalence in Italian Young Adults, controlling for different distribution of individual risk factors and their determinants. 2. Methods The present study is part of a multi-center, cross-sectional survey on the young adult general population (ISAYA) aimed to assess the variations of asthma, asthma-like symptoms 0531-5131/ D 2003 International Federation of Otorhinolaryngological Societies (IFOS). All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0531-5131(03)00686-1 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: ics@elsevier.com (M. Bugiani). International Congress Series 1240 (2003) 497 – 501