On World Lung Day, 25 September 2022, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which GOLD is a founding member, calls on governments worldwide to address stark global inequalities in respiratory health.
The COVID-19 pandemic may have subsided, but its impact highlights a global lung health crisis that has not gone away.
Respiratory illnesses affect people in all countries, but disproportionally in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where resources for research, prevention, and management are scarce. To address such inequity, we must look beyond medical care to the social and environmental determinants of health such as tobacco use, air pollution, climate change and poverty.
Five respiratory diseases are the commonest causes of illness and death worldwide – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, acute respiratory tract infection or pneumonia, tuberculosis (TB) and lung cancer.