2006 Project of “The Burden of Lung Diseases in Hong Kong”
Hong Kong Thoracic Society, Scientific Sub-committee
Background
This is a proposal of the scientific subcommittee of the Hong Kong Thoracic Society to gather all the health statistics in relation to respiratory diseases to provide comprehensive information on the burden of lung disease in Hong Kong, their treatment and economic cost to society. The project and the document produced will be part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the Hong Kong Thoracic Society and 10th anniversary celebration of the Hong Kong Lung Foundation.
Overall Objective
To provide comprehensive information from available data on the incidence, consequence, and trend of respiratory diseases and the economic burden of these diseases in Hong Kong necessary for inform policy-making.
Specific aims
- To quantify the numbers of deaths and amount of disease caused by respiratory disease in Hong Kong in 2004
- Compare the burden of respiratory disease with that of other major killers in Hong Kong- Ischemic heart disease and cancer
- Describe the recent trends in respiratory disease
- Provide information on utilization of health care resources and economic costs of respiratory diseases in Hong Kong
Research plan and methods
The framework of the project will be based on the Burden of Lung Disease Project in the United Kingdom published by the British Thoracic Society this year.1
The following diseases will be studied:
- Tuberculosis
- Cancers of the respiratory tract
- Asthma
- Chronic obstructive lung disease
- Pneumoconiosis
- Infections: acute respiratory infection, influenza and pneumonia (lower respiratory infection)
- Bronchietasis
- Sleep apnea
Significance
The burden of lung disease study will provide comprehensive information on the incidence, consequence and causation of lung disease for health authorities in making decisions on health policies relating to lung disease. This is particularly important in a context where increasingly well informed people demand more health services and interventions than available resources can finance. Decision-makers at all levels are increasingly required to evaluate the impact of health policies, to justify adoption of new ones and to ensure that information is available for comparison. The information will also be very useful for evaluating the impact of health policies and to justify the adoption of new ones.
References:
- British Thoracic Society. The Burden of Lung Diseases. 2nd edition. A Statistics Report from the British Thoracic Society 2006.
