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The prevalence of asthma has increased dramatically over the last 25 years in the United States and in other nations as a result of ill-defined changes in living conditions in modern society. On 18 and 19 October 2004 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences sponsored the workshop “Environmental Influences on the Induction and Incidence of Asthma” to review current scientific evidence with respect to factors that may contribute to the induction of asthma. Participants addressed two broad questions: a) What does the science suggest that regulatory and public health agencies could do now to reduce the incidence of asthma? and b) What research is needed to improve our understanding of the factors that contribute to the induction of asthma and our ability to manage this problem? In this article (one of four articles resulting from the workshop), we briefly …