Author Details Life prevalence of upper respiratory tract diseases and asthma among children residing in rural area near a regional industrial park: cross-sectional study Isabella Karakis1 PhD, Lecturer, karakis@research.haifa.ac.il Ella Kordysh2 MD, PhD, Senior researcher, kordish@bgu.ac.il Tally Lahav3 MMedSci, Project assistant, lahav.r@gmail.com Arkady Bolotin4 PhD, Researcher, arkadyv@bgu.ac.il Yael Glazer5 MPH, Research assistant, glazer@bgu.ac.il Hilel Vardi6 MSc, Programmer, hilel@bgu.ac.il Ilana Belmaker7 MD, MPH, Head, regional health office, elaineb@bgu.ac.il Batia Sarov8 MPH, PhD, Professor, sbatia@bgu.ac.il 1 School of Public Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Ben-Gurion Univeristy of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel. 7 Southern Regional Health Department of the Israeli Ministry of Health, Beersheba, Israel. 8 Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. Correspondence: E Kordysh, Ben-Gurion Univeristy of the Negev, POB 653, Beersheba 84105, Israel  Author contribution: Isabella Karakis: designed the project. Ella Kordysh: wrote the first draft. Tally Lahav: collected data. Arkady Bolotin: statistical analysis. Yael Glazer: input data. Hilel Vardi: statistical analysis. Ilana Belmaker: contributed to drafts. Batia Sarov: original concept. Citation: Karakis I, Kordysh E, Lahav T, Bolotin A, Glazer Y, Vardi H, Belmaker I, Sarov B.  Life prevalence of upper respiratory tract diseases and asthma among children residing in rural area near a regional industrial park: cross-sectional study. Rural and Remote Health 9: 1092. (Online) 2009. Available: http://www.rrh.org.au Received: 25 September 2008 Revised: 17 February 2009 Accepted: 30 July 2009