Global report warns of dangerous gaps in respiratory health awareness and research

A new paper published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, on July 17, 2025, warns that respiratory disease is being critically underfunded and overlooked, with dangerous consequences to public health and global healthcare systems.

The authors of Breathing Barriers: Bridging Lung Health, Research, and Awareness Gaps, note that respiratory disease—including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and pulmonary fibrosis—is among the top causes of death worldwide and the third most common cause of medically assisted deaths in Canada.

COPD expenditures alone are equivalent to 0.1% of global GDP annually. Yet the amount of research published about respiratory medicine has been decreasing compared to other disease areas for decades. In fact, only 4.1% of all research papers indexed in PubMed in 2019 focused on respiratory disease, the lowest proportion in 50 years, noted the authors.

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