A study recently published in The BMJ suggests that the number of total deaths worldwide due to chronic respiratory diseases has increased during the past 3 decades, although age-standardized mortality rates have generally declined.

Using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study 2017, the researchers examined temporal and geographic trends of mortality and disability-adjusted life-years, by age and sex, due to chronic respiratory diseases, including COPD, asthma, pneumoconiosis and interstitial lung disease and pulmonary sarcoidosis, from 1990 to 2017 around the world.