Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40199588›Full record

ArticleThorax2025

Incidence and prevalence of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and interstitial lung disease between 2004 and 2023: harmonised analyses of longitudinal cohorts across England, Wales, South-East Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Hannah Whittaker, Adriana Kramer Fiala Machado, Sara Hatam, Sarah Cook, Sean Scully, Hywel Turner T Evans, Thomas Bolton, Constantinos Kallis, John Busby, Liam G Heaney and 3 more

Abstract readMulticenter Study
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Thorax, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Review
  3. Review
  4. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

13 authors.

Hannah WhittakerSchool of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK h.whittaker@imperial.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0002-7705-0300
Adriana Kramer Fiala Machado *Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-6800-1064
Sara Hatam *The University of Edinburgh Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, Edinburgh, UK.
Sarah Cook *Imperial College London School of Public Health, London, UK.
Sean Scully *Swansea University, Swansea, UK.
Hywel Turner T Evans *Population Data Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK.ORCID 0000-0001-6745-4187
Thomas BoltonBritish Heart Foundation Data Science Centre, London, UK.
Constantinos KallisNational Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-0866-5421
John BusbyCentre for Experimental Medicine, Queen's University Belfast School of Medicine Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Belfast, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-4831-7464
Liam G HeaneyCentre of Infection and Immunity, Queens University Belfast, Belfast, UK.
Aziz SheikhUsher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Jennifer K QuintNHLI, Imperial College London, London, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-0149-4869
CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT Consortium

Funding

Wellcome Trust
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundWe describe the epidemiology of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) from 2004 to 2023 in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (NI) using a harmonised approach.

methodsData from the National Health Service England (NHSE), Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum in England, Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Databank in Wales, DataLoch in South-East Scotland and the Honest Broker Service in NI were used. A harmonised approach to COPD, asthma and ILD case definitions, study designs and study populations across the four nations was performed. Age-sex-standardised incidence rates and point prevalence were calculated between 2004 and 2023 depending on data availability. Logistic and negative binomial regression compared incidence and prevalence rates between the start and end of each study period. Linear extrapolation projected incidence rates between 2020 and 2023 to illustrate how observed and projected rates differed.

resultsIncidence rates were lower in 2019 versus 2005 for asthma (England: incidence rate ratio 0.89, 95% CI 0.88 to 0.90; Wales: 0.66, 0.65 to 0.68; Scotland: 0.67, 0.64 to 0.71; NI: 0.84, 0.81 to 0.86), COPD (England: 0.83, 0.82 to 0.85; Wales: 0.67, 0.65 to 0.69) and higher for ILD (England: 3.27, 3.05 to 3.50; Wales: 1.39, 1.27 to 1.53; Scotland: 1.63, 1.36 to 1.95; NI: 3.03, 2.47 to 3.72). In NHSE, the incidence of asthma was similar in June 2023 versus November 2019, but lower for COPD and higher for ILD. Prevalence of asthma in 2019 in England, Wales, Scotland and NI was 9.7%, 15.9%, 13.2% and 7.0%, respectively, for COPD 4.5%, 5.1%, 4.4% and 3.0%, and for ILD 0.4%, 0.5%, 0.6% and 0.3%. Projected incidence rates were 2.8, 3.4 and 1.8 times lower for asthma, COPD and ILD compared with observed rates at the height of the pandemic.

interpretationAsthma, COPD and ILD affect over 10 million people across the four nations, and a substantial number of diagnoses were missed during the pandemic.

Indexed as

AsthmaLung Diseases, InterstitialPulmonary Disease, Chronic ObstructiveAdultAgedEnglandFemaleHumansIncidenceLongitudinal StudiesMaleMiddle AgedNorthern IrelandPrevalenceScotlandWalesAsthma EpidemiologyCOPD epidemiologyInterstitial Fibrosis

Identifiers

PMID40199588
PMCPMC12322415

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.