Childhood Asthma in Urban Settings Network
The Childhood Asthma in Urban Settings (CAUSE) network is a group of researchers at hospitals and other research centers across the United States. The research teams within the CAUSE network are dedicated to the common goals of understanding how children's environment and genetics contribute to the development of asthma, and how to best treat or prevent asthma. This network is dedicated to helping children in urban settings where asthma is very common and more severe.
Research in this area has been funded by NIAID since 1991 under different names and funding mechanisms – first with the National Cooperative Inner-City Asthma Study in 1991, then the Inner-City Asthma Study in 1996, followed by the Inner-City Asthma Consortium which began in 2002 and ended in 2021. CAUSE started in 2021. This sustained effort has allowed each network to build on past research and continuously advance the goal of improving the lives of children with asthma.
Interested in being part of a study?
The CAUSE network is currently working with eight sites across our clinical trials to support asthma research in cities across the United States. Check out our current clinical trials, recruitment centers, and recent study updates!
CAUSE Institutions
Other Collaborating Sites
Recent Network News & Findings
Sprinting Toward Success with CHEETAH
April 1, 2025
One of our active studies, Mechanisms Underlying Asthma Symptoms and Exacerbations Examined Across T2 Status in Children (CAUSE-03/CHEETAH), aims to learn more about what happens to the airways during periods of respiratory illness (like when someone has a cold) and during asthma attacks. The study will look at many distinct factors – including the number of asthma attacks a person experiences, breathing tests, and asthma symptoms over time.
As of September 15, 2025, the study has enrolled 116 children with asthma and 35 without asthma. The participating children complete regularly scheduled visits throughout their time in the study, as well as extra visits when they have a cold. That's a ton of great effort! Thank you to everyone helping us learn more about asthma through this study!
Right now, we are still hoping to find more people to join CHEETAH. The study needs about 250 participants with asthma and 60 without. Please check out our study's entry on ClinicalTrials.gov for a full look at the participating sites and criteria to participate – we'd love to hear from you!
Celebrating the Completion of URECA!
January 1, 2025
The Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (ICAC-07/URECA) study had its final participant visit on August 31, 2024. After twenty years, this is a huge accomplishment, and we can't thank our participants and their families enough!
Beginning back in 2005, the URECA study enrolled 609 pregnant parents and, after birth, continued to monitor both the parents and their babies every year. Originally, the study was designed to look at these families until the children were 3 years old, but we learned so much that we extended the trial until our child participants turned 18!
The URECA study looked at how different environmental and genetic factors were related to the development of asthma and respiratory allergies. The study monitored the children for symptoms of asthma and respiratory allergies and for things like lung function, stress, and weight gain, but also exposure to pollution, pets, and cockroaches. All these and more were monitored while children were growing up.
Using data from the URECA study, we have published more than 51 articles in scientific journals so far. For example, in 2018, our team published a paper describing how we found that about a third of the URECA children had asthma by the time they were 7 years old. Most of those kids with asthma also had allergies, which were discovered by allergy skin tests. The URECA study team found a few things that made it more likely for kids to get asthma: if their moms had asthma, if their moms had depression, if they wheezed a lot before they were 3 years old, or if they were allergic to more than one thing.
There is still so much more to learn, including from the most recent data we collected from our teenage participants! Stay tuned for more and THANK YOU to all our participants who have made this work possible!