The global battle to improve patients’ health outcomes: COPD awareness, activities, and progress

The International COPD Coalition (ICC) has been working to improve COPD awareness and action since it was organized in 2001. Shortly after the launch of ICC in 2001 we did an omnibus phone and in-person interview study of COPD awareness in Canada, Brazil, China, and Germany and found that global public awareness of COPD was very limited. It ranged from 4% of the public in Brazil to about 10% in Germany. Increasing public awareness was a high priority to help COPD patients. This was important because these data showed us early on how few people knew about the disease and how important it was to increase awareness globally.