International Severe Asthma Registry: Canadian Cohort

Study staff will collect medical information through reviewing participant medical charts and interviewing participants about their health/asthma. The information collected includes birth date, gender, ethnicity, height/weight, body mass index, medical history (smoking history and exacerbation history), current and past asthma related medications, and any recent test results available pertaining to blood work, lung function, allergen skin prick, and imaging. This information will be collected at the baseline visit, and then once a year at a follow up visit, for five years (total of five visits). Participants will be assigned a unique study number to protect the confidentiality of their personal health care information. All study data will be de-identified and then stored in a secure information management system, hosted at the study sponsor, Optimum Patient Care Global Limited in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Participant identities will always be kept confidential and will not be included in any research that is published. Data collected across the Canadian sites will be used to find ways to improve asthma treatments in Canada, to report on current patterns of managing severe asthma in Canada, to identify different sub-groups of severe asthma, and to carry out various medical research to understand asthma better and develop new treatments. Research records and health or other source records may be inspected in the presence of the Principal Investigator or by representatives of the University of British Columbia's Clinical Research Ethics Board for the purpose of monitoring the research. No information or records that disclose participants' identities will be published without subject consent, nor will any information or records that disclose participants' identities be removed or released without subject consent unless required by law.