Free respiratory evaluation and smoke-exposure reductionby primary health care integrated groups
FRESH AIR is a 3 year project which addresses the urgent need to prevent, diagnose and treat lung diseases in LMICs and other low-resource settings where the greatest burden of disease is experienced. Our Consortium brings together leading international respiratory researchers, clinicians and policy experts from EU member states and the US who have expertise and experience of the challenges of implementation in LMICs and healthcare providers, policy makers and implementers from four countries that represent very different low-resource settings.  

Members will work together to adapt and test innovation and evidence-based practice in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of lung disease in four low-resource settings in Uganda, Kyrgyz Republic, Vietnam and Greece with high levels of tobacco consumption and exposure to Household Air Pollution (HAP). In so doing, the Consortium will transfer skills and technology from EU member states and the US to new contexts and explore a range of implementation science research questions. The new knowledge this generates will be widely disseminated nationally, regionally and internationally, ensuring the scale-up of interventions tested by the project and global impact of research findings.  The project will also provide new perspectives on policy issues of concern to EU members, increase the international profile of EU funded research on key health challenges and open up markets for healthcare innovations. 

The project has 7 specific objectives focused on the following:

1. Identifying factors influencing the implementation of evidenced-based interventions
2. Exploring which awareness-raising approaches are most effective in achieving behaviour change
3. Adapting interventions that provide smoking cessation support
4. Testing innovative diagnostic methods for COPD
5. Promoting pulmonary rehabilitation as a low cost treatment
6. Reducing children’s risk of lung damage
7. Generating new knowledge, innovation and scalable models.