Engaging stakeholders to level up COPD care in LMICs: lessons learned from the "Breathe Well" programme in Brazil, China, Georgia, and North Macedonia.

BACKGROUND: Effective stakeholder engagement in health research is increasingly being recognised and promoted as an important pathway to closing the gap between knowledge production and its use in health systems. However, little is known about its process and impacts, particularly in low-and middle-income countries. This opinion piece draws on the stakeholder engagement experiences from a global health research programme on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) led by clinician researchers in Brazil, China, Georgia and North Macedonia, and presents the process, outcomes and lessons learned. MAIN BODY: Each country team was supported with an overarching engagement protocol and mentored to develop a tailored plan. Patient involvement in research was previously limited in all countries, requiring intensive efforts through personal communication, meetings, advisory groups and social media. Accredited training programmes were effective incentives for participation from healthcare providers; and aligning research findings with competing policy priorities enabled interest and dialogue with decision-makers. The COVID-19 pandemic severely limited possibilities for planned engagement, although remote methods were used where possible. Planned and persistent engagement contributed to shared knowledge and commitment to change, including raised patient and public awareness about COPD, improved skills and practice of healthcare providers, increased interest and support from clinical leaders, and dialogue for integrating COPD services into national policy and practice. CONCLUSION: Stakeholder engagement enabled relevant local actors to produce and utilise knowledge for small wins such as improving day-to-day practice and for long-term goals of equitable access to COPD care. For it to be successful and sustained, stakeholder engagement needs to be valued and integrated throughout the research and knowledge generation process, complete with dedicated resources, contextualised and flexible planning, and commitment.

Accuracy and economic evaluation of screening tests for undiagnosed COPD among hypertensive individuals in Brazil.

In Brazil, prevalence of diagnosed COPD among adults aged 40 years and over is 16% although over 70% of cases remain undiagnosed. Hypertension is common and well-recorded in primary care, and frequently co-exists with COPD because of common causes such as tobacco smoking, therefore we conducted a cross-sectional screening test accuracy study in nine Basic Health Units in Brazil, among hypertensive patients aged ≥40 years to identify the optimum screening test/combinations to detect undiagnosed COPD. We compared six index tests (four screening questionnaires, microspirometer and peak flow) against the reference test defined as those below the lower limit of normal (LLN-GLI) on quality diagnostic spirometry, with confirmed COPD at clinical review. Of 1162 participants, 6.8% (n = 79) had clinically confirmed COPD. Peak flow had a higher specificity but lower sensitivity than microspirometry (sensitivity 44.3% [95% CI 33.1, 55.9], specificity 95.5% [95% CI 94.1, 96.6]). SBQ performed well compared to the other questionnaires (sensitivity 75.9% [95% CI 65.0, 84.9], specificity 59.2% [95% CI 56.2, 62.1]). A strategy requiring both SBQ and peak flow to be positive yielded sensitivity of 39.2% (95% CI 28.4, 50.9) and specificity of 97.0% (95% CI 95.7, 97.9). The use of simple screening tests was feasible within the Brazilian primary care setting. The combination of SBQ and peak flow appeared most efficient, when considering performance of the test, cost and ease of use (costing £1690 (5554 R$) with 26.7 cases detected per 1,000 patients). However, the choice of screening tests depends on the clinical setting and availability of resources.ISRCTN registration number: 11377960.

The risk of preterm delivery in women from different ethnic groups.

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether routinely measured variables explained the increased risk of preterm delivery in some UK ethnic groups. DESIGN: Cross sectional study of deliveries recorded in the Child Health Record System. SETTING: North Birmingham, UK. POPULATION: All North Birmingham women delivering singletons, 1994-1997 inclusive. METHOD: Logistic regression. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for preterm delivery, defined as less than 37 weeks, less than 34 weeks and less than 28 weeks, unadjusted and adjusted for maternal age, an area-based socio-economic status measure, and marital status, year of birth, fetal sex and past obstetric history. RESULTS: For Afro-Caribbean women, the ORs (95% CIs) were: for delivery less than 37 weeks, 1.44 (1.26-1.64) unadjusted and 1.22 (1.07-1.41) adjusted; for delivery less than 34 weeks, 1.55 (1.25-1.92) unadjusted and 1.29 (1.02-1.61) adjusted; for delivery less than 28 weeks, 1.66 (1.08-2.55) unadjusted and 1.32 (0.84-2.06) adjusted. For African women, the risk of delivery less than 37 weeks was not significantly raised; for delivery less than 34 weeks, the OR (95% CI) was 1.88 (0.99-3.58) unadjusted and 1.78 (0.93-3.40) adjusted; for delivery less than 28 weeks, the OR (95% CI) was 4.02 (1.60-10.12) unadjusted and 4.10 (1.66-10.16) adjusted. In Afro-Caribbeans, deprivation and marital status explained the differences between the unadjusted and adjusted ORs. There was a linear relation between deprivation and preterm delivery for all ethnic groups, except for Asians. CONCLUSIONS: Factors associated with deprivation and marital status explain about half of the excess of preterm births in Afro-Caribbeans, but not Africans. The risk of preterm delivery might not be related to deprivation in Asians.