ERS leaders' top picks

Q&A

As Advocacy Council Chair, what are you most looking forward to about this year’s congress?

Our Planetary Health is becoming more and more important every day ,so it is so necessary and urgent to discuss the enviromental effects on respiratory diseases such as pollution and climate change ,occupation and more . The prevention is possible and it is one of the priorities of Advocacy team .We build coalitions focused on prevention, research, environment, tobacco control, public health, patients and respiratory disease areas.

We aim to protect and improve lung health for everyone.

What in your opinion will be the hot topics for airways disease specialists?

We need to discuss the prevention of these diseases which seems to be possible .

To deal with it there is a very good session in our congress “Towards elimination of COPD Innovative views from the Lancet Commission on COPD “

I believe we need to have a holistic approach rather than a biomedical one. So another session could be this pro/con session “Is pharmacological or non-pharmacological management the priority for the patient who wants to be ” less breathless and do more”

Some questions and challenges about asthma will be interesting in the session below; Symposium: Asthma: confusion in diagnosis, recognising comorbidities and understanding pathophysiological connections

Tell us your top three picks from the congress programme.

In parallel with the factors I have mentioned above, my top picks are:

1.  Symposium: Dangers in the air we breathe – 5 Sept/9:30-11:00

In this symposium  recent scientific highlights about the effects of airborne pollution factors, especially allergens, diesel exhaust particles, microplastics and microtextiles, on the lungs will be presented and   their effects in children and adults will be compared ; to discuss the biology of allergen-induced lung disease will be discussed ,biological sex differences in response to exposure to these factors will be described

The dangers of airborne environmental factors to the human lung are of great and diverse interest due to the current strong international focus on climate change and air pollution.

2. Hot topics: Launch of “Lung facts” – 4 Sept 2022/11:15-12:45

Using data to create a transformation in respiratory healthcare

Lung Facts will act a key advocacy tool in the context of the International Respiratory Coalition (IRC) to raise the profile of lung health following on from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on respiratory health across the globe

3. Primary care session: Forgotten issues in COPD: a primary care perspective – 6 Sept/11.15-12.45

I very much value primary care in the management of chronic respiratory diseases, so this session will remind us some important but neglected issues

Check out all top picks by the ERS leadership

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