The message from the World Asthma Meeting. The Working Groups of the World Asthma Meeting, held in Barcelona, Spain, December 9-13, 1998.

The 1998 World Asthma Meeting (WAM) has been the first multidisciplinary event aimed to consider asthma as a global public health problem in children and adults. The purpose of the meeting was to present state-of-the-art scientific information and to make recommendations on the research agenda for the coming years. Five Working Groups of invited experts were appointed to pin-point the established knowledge and the important questions in the areas of epidemiology, prevention, pathogenesis, management, and education. Their reports were discussed during the final plenary session, and are forming the current proceedings of the meeting. The message of the World Asthma Meeting provides a research agenda supported by the major international bodies involved in this disease. An integrated approach is considered to be essential in order to improve the prevention and care of asthma in all countries of the world.