On 12 June, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) published the first ever European report, “Chronic Respiratory Diseases (CRDs) and health equity by 2050 – spotlight on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma in the WHO Europe Region.” As the organisation representing patients and caregivers in Europe, EFA analysed what’s in for people living with asthma and COPD for the next 2025 years.
WHO calls policymakers to address the growing issue of CRDs in Europe
Each year, 6.8 million people are newly diagnosed with CRDs in the WHO European Region[1]. Yet, these diseases are too often considered secondary while, in reality, they are at the core of deteriorating health and deserve stronger political and public health attention.
As a result of the overall approach to lung health, people living with CRDs are often neglected by healthcare systems, facing delayed diagnosis, barriers to care, and public health policies that fail to protect their lung health.
The launch of the WHO Europe report comes at a critical moment: ahead of the UN High-level meeting on NCDs in September 2025 and the subsequent formulation of the WHO European Programme of Work 2.0 for 2026-2029. The timing reinforces the urgency to elevate CRDs as a priority among NCDs more than ever.
The European-focused WHO report calls for countries in the region to adopt targets for asthma and COPD to enable implementation and progress monitoring at national, regional and global levels.
With this report, WHO Europe elevates asthma and COPD care as an issue of equity in Europe and underpins the principles adopted in the May 2025 WHA resolution ‘Promoting and prioritizing an integrated lung health approach’.
EFA highly welcomes this rights-based perspective, which reflects the patient evidence we have generated recently, like the Active Asthma and COPD Patients Access Care Report (2019) and COPD Standards of Care report (2024), highlighting the current gaps in care faced by asthma and COPD patients in Europe.
Health equity, diagnosis and access to care
The report confirms that 81 million people in the WHO European Region live with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma and COPD. CRDs in the report are defined to include asthma, COPD, bronchiectasis, cystic fibrosis (CF), interstitial lung disease (ILD), pulmonary sarcoidosis, pneumoconiosis, and other chronic upper respiratory tract conditions.
Alongside extensive data and country examples initiatives, the report includes five patient testimonies that reflect the lived experiences of patients with CRDs.
CRDs contribute significantly to morbidity, disability and mortality, especially in relation to cardiovascular disease and cancer, the leading causes of death worldwide. This NCD burden leads to diminished quality of life and strong inequities, since respiratory diseases are highly debilitating.
According to WHO Europe, equity gaps are especially visible in areas such as access to care and rising medicine costs, and in the use of digital technology for health. At the same time, multiple overlapping crises in the WHO Europe Region, including pandemics, wars and climate change, exacerbate rising respiratory health inequities and strain healthcare systems, which are already struggling to address chronic conditions.
Strong links of asthma and COPD with other diseases
The report uncovers a wide range of risks for developing CRDs: behavioural risks (e.g. tobacco use), environmental and occupational exposure (e.g. indoor and outdoor pollution, geography, weather and temperature extremes, occupation) and metabolic risks (e.g. body mass index (BMI), frailty). Social and cultural factors including socioeconomic status, overcrowded housing, and smoking-related stigma also shape CRD burden and access to care.
High BMI, considered as obesity, is the leading risk factor for asthma and therefore higher weight gain in childhood is linked with childhood asthma. Meanwhile, low BMI is increasingly associated with exacerbations of COPD and an increased risk of death.
The report also highlights frailty as an important factor influencing quality of life and the overall care cycle for patients.
What’s the role for patients in the 2050 vision?
Patients and their representative organisations bring essential lived experience, offering insights into treatments and the full continuum of care, while helping shape knowledge and policy priorities and crucially, managing their own care. However, the WHO Europe report does not acknowledge the work and value of civil society and patient organisations in improving health and care, despite their existence being a response to gaps in healthcare and support, nor does it recognise the central and multifactorial role of patients themselves in managing their asthma and COPD.
At EFA, we believe that closer cooperation between all actors, including patients organisations, is part of the solution to improve prevention and care of respiratory diseases. EFA Community of members offer a wealth of knowledge and resources, including peer support, community support, and patient advocacy, and connects policy makers to patients’ realities and needs.
While the report makes a reference to EFA’s DIG_IT Project and our Dutch member organisation, Longfonds’s training programmes, those acknowledgements are brief and do not reflect the full scope of patient organisations' work. The report overlooks how patients and patient organisations help fill healthcare gaps, including through peer support and efforts to address dysfunction between different levels of care in CRD management.
Therefore, we stand ready to collaborate with WHO Europe and the European Respiratory Society to improve prevention, care and equity for people living with asthma and COPD.
Next steps
EFA congratulates our partner, the ERS, for this important collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
The report is a major tool which can be used at national level, to push for improved detection, treatment coverage and control of asthma and COPD.
As presented during EFA’s recent debate on lung health and COPD in the European Parliament’s health committee, EFA will continue to advocate for CRDs to be featured in the high-level UN meeting.
Read the WHO Report on Chronic Respiratory Disease here.
[1] GBD Compare [website]. Seattle, WA: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation; 2025 (http://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare).