• FRESH AIR (pilot underway in Vietnam) 
  Effectiveness and cost-benefit of case-finding, smoking cessation and indoor biomass smoke-reduction strategies in resource limited primary care settings. This is being piloted in Vietnam, as part of the e-faculty programme.  Pictured right is Niels Chavannes, the main researcher, with the Vietnamese team including Prof Lan and Dr Vinh.

• Fresh Air Uganda (ongoing)

A clinical review and commentary published in the September 2011 edition of the Primary Care Respiratory Journal (PCRJ) describe the context of this study.

Pilot study findings reported by Frederik van Gemert in PCRJ as part of the abstracts from the IPCRG 2nd Scientific Meeting 2011

• UNLOCK (ongoing)

Primary care researchers  from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Australia are co-ordinating databases of relevant diagnostic and follow-up variables for COPD management in primary care.  An article in the PCRJ gives more information and if you wish to join the group, please contact Dr Niels H Chavannes

• The ICAPP study (Improving Asthma Care in Portuguese Patients) (ongoing)
  IPCRG have provided a grant to Universidade do Minho for Dr Jaime Correia de Sousa and Dr John Yaphe to undertake research on the following questions: Does improved recording of asthma care using items from the IPCRG guidelines improve the outcomes of asthma control for patients? and Are patient compliance, concordance and enablement associated with better asthma control and outcomes?

• A qualitative analysis of barriers, motivation to quit and tailored interventions for smoking cessation in smokers with and without COPD (ongoing)
  A computer-tailored intervention, which provides personalised tailored feedback reports, for use in general practice has already been developed and is currently being evaluated in a large randomised controlled trial with smokers recruited from primary care. The purpose of this study is to explore and investigate the views of smokers with COPD, especially their experiences of smoking and quitting and to adapt this intervention for use with smokers with COPD by modifying the questionnaire and the tailored messages. This will also enable us to develop an application for a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of this computer-tailored intervention for smokers with COPD
  

• Qualitative exploration and quantitative validation of the Royal College of Physician’s three questions for assessment of asthma control (RCP3Qs) when used in the Quality and Outcome Framework indicator pilot 2009/10. (ongoing)
  To explore the process of administrating and using the RCP3Qs in routine clinical practice and to compare the recorded scores with the validated self-administered ACQ.
  

• U-BIOPRED study
  The IPCRG is one of 41 partners across Europe participating in the U-BIOPRED study led by Dr Peter Sterk (Unbiased BIOmarkers used for PREDicting disease progression and medication efficacy in severe asthma) that has just been selected for funding by the European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative. Our role is in Ethics & Safety and Dissemination. 13/6/2010. An article that outlines the U-BIOPRED approach has been published in Chest. "An Integrative Systems Biology Approach to Understanding Pulmonary Diseases"  Further publications: Diagnosis and definition of severe refractory asthma: an international consensus statement from the Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI)