The International Respiratory Coalition’s (IRC) Lung Facts resource – a tool which provides reliable data on the burden of respiratory disease across Europe – has been updated to include the latest Global Burden of Disease (GBD) figures from 2021. This includes completely new disease areas, inclusive of COVID-19, and an expansion on some disease areas to include paediatric respiratory disease data. Overall, it offers a sobering picture of the immense impact of respiratory disease across Europe.
Lung Facts was first introduced by the IRC in September 2022, using 2019 GBD data. It was developed to fill an important gap, offering a reliable, free-to-access platform where the latest data on respiratory disease across the European Union and World Health Organization European region can be sourced by anyone who needs it, but primarily to demonstrate why respiratory healthcare needs urgent attention and investment.
Prof. Guy Joos, Chair of the IRC Operational Committee, commented: “We have made our vision very clear – for every country to have the tools to implement a national respiratory strategy based on best practice. Lung Facts is an important part of that. The IRC believes that data should drive action. The data available in our Lung Facts resource lays out clearly the burden of respiratory disease across Europe – addressing the who, when and where, as well as the financial burden per country.”
Amongst the latest figures from the WHO European Region in 2021, and looking at specific disease areas, we can see 42.7 million people had asthma and 13.7 million of those were children/young people. 40.4 million people had COPD. There were 1.6 million deaths from COVID-19 and 18,000 from TB. Lung Facts also provides data to show the number of healthy years lost to respiratory disease, including 10 million healthy years lost due to lung cancer, and 35.6 million lost due to COVID-19. A colossal €1.4 trillion is the estimated total societal cost for 9 major lung conditions – calculated in terms of monetised loss of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
“Data is clearly powerful and what this data gives us – especially our existing national coalitions, who are working on the development of national plans – is a clear and direct case to policymakers that respiratory health needs to be prioritised at national level. It also demonstrates the huge economic impact and need for investment. It is the basis of an important call to action for decisionmakers: with this data, we ask you to support the development of national respiratory strategies – both politically and financially”, shared Prof. Joos.
Since its inception in 2021, the IRC has worked to build and support national coalitions across Europe. There are now 16 coalitions – all at different stages of progress – working towards a shared goal. Those national coalitions have contributed to the Lung Facts resource by inputting on country specific data pages, which are also freely available to all. This round of updates has seen four new country pages added from Austria, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine.
Speaking on future updates, Prof. Joos noted: “The IRC is committed to maintaining the Lung Facts resource – ensuring it has all the latest reliable data on respiratory disease. It will be updated and added to regularly. The next additions will increase the amount of paediatric data, currently asthma data is available but in the coming weeks we will add lower respiratory tract infection, TB, interstitial lung disease and COVID-19. We are also working on including data on risk factors, such as air pollution and tobacco.”
“We know that an important part of this project is also to identify where we still have gaps in data – in order consider how we can acquire that missing information to paint the most accurate picture we can of the impact of respiratory disease. This work is already underway.”
Lung Facts is accessible now on the International Respiratory Coalition website.
