Author's response to reviews Title: Prevalence of asthma, rhinitis and eczema symptoms in rural and urban school-aged children from Oropeza Province - Bolivia: a cross-sectional study Authors:

statistical analysis, results and discussion sections were modified to clarify these aspects. ABTEILUNG FÜR INFEKTIONSUND TROPENMEDIZIN, KLINIKUM DER LMU Institut u. Poliklinik für Arbeits-, Sozialund Umweltmedizin, Klinikum der LMU (ii) The authors categorized type of school (private versus urban). However, as already pointed out in the text there are no private schools in rural areas. In Table 2, results comparing rural and urban schools are presented adjusted by type of school. What is the justification for adjusting by this variable when all schools are of the same type in rural areas? Type of school was considered, specially, because of socio economic differences in each type. Considering your observation we explore the differences categorizing type of school in two categories Public and Public with private Infrastructure/Private. When cluster effect was considered, urban and rural difference lost statistical significance. For that reason the adjusted model only included “Age” the only variable that showed statistical significance (p value ≤ 0.05) in the bivariate analysis. Reviewer: Donna Rennie Reviewer's report: • Discretionary Revisions (which are recommendations for improvement but which the author can choose to ignore) Authors have included information requested in the introduction regarding ISAAC results from other Latin American countries as requested • Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of a term, which the author can be trusted to correct) I think this is addressed sufficiently • Major Compulsory Revisions (which the author must respond to before a decision on publication can be reached) Major revisions have been addressed. I am satisfied with their revisions. Thank you. No more comments were addressed. We are looking forward to your response and the comments of reviewers. Yours sincerely, Solis Soto, Maria Teresa Institute and Outpatient Clinic for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich Telephone: 089-5160-2485 Ziemssenstr. 1, 80336 Munich, Germany E-mail: [email protected]