Breathe Well South America builds on the £2 million NIHR Global Health Research Group on Global COPD in Primary Care and its first Breathe Well project.
Our aim is to foster research in primary care and the community to improve the diagnosis, management and prognosis of COPD patients in low and middle income countries. Currently 90% of COPD deaths occur in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). The Birmingham research team has a track record in high quality research on screening, the early identification and management of COPD in UK primary care.
The first Breathe Well team brought together primary care respiratory research teams in Brazil, China, Republic of North Macedonia and Georgia, and through collaboration with the IPCRG.
Breathe Well South America is co-led with the Universidad Científica del Sur (UCSUR) in Peru, working in partnership with the Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy (IECS) in Argentina, University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, University College London (UCL), and the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG).
Together we aim to:
• Develop and consolidate a sustainable collaboration and shared vision
• Strengthen local research capacity in the partner countries in community-based COPD research and generic population research methods
• Co-create a local plan for evaluating approaches for identifying undiagnosed COPD in the community, adapted to cultural needs and local healthcare infrastructure
• To adapt evidence-based behavioural approaches for management of COPD according to cultural needs and the local healthcare infrastructure and assess the feasibility of their implementation
• To build a robust platform for future collaborative research with the partner countries and other similar settings.