Imperial College London

Academic Institute

OFHS250055

The aim of this study is to compare and describe factors associated with self reporting of chronic respiratory diseases in Our Future Health . Specific research questions: 1.How common are self reported chronic respiratory conditions in the OFH population(asthma, COPD, Lung Fibrosis, Bronchiectasis)? 2. How does how common these diseases are in OFH compare with the published literature? 3. How do self reported diagnoses in OFH compare with those in Hospital data? 3. Are there any specific factors (lifestyle, demographic) associated with a diagnosis of any of the chronic respiratory conditions? 4. What are the common reasons for hospital admission in people with self reported chronic respiratory diseases? Self reported respiratory diagnoses are notoriously unreliable with confusion around what diseases people are diagnosed with amongst both patients and healthcare professionals. This is particularly the case for respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD where people incorrectly think they have one rather than the other. Previous work in UK Biobank found that asthma and COPD specifically were often interchanged and wrong when self reported. This can have implications when trying to answer research questions using the data. We would like to compare the reporting of chronic self reported respiratory conditions in OFH, through looking at diagnoses in HES and OFH. and investigate factors associated with self reported diagnoses as well as reasons for admissions to hospital amongst this population. This initial step is important and will pave the way for more research questions to be answered as more data collected over time. At the moment, if we don’t know how well reported the data are, we cannot ask important scientific questions.

Chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease),lung fibrosis and bronchiectasis are common. They are also understudied relative to some other diseases such as heart diseases. OFH provides a unique opportunity to better understand aspects of chronic respiratory disease, particularly if they have been accurately defined to begin with. Before we and others embark on more complex studies using OFH, we need to compare the self reporting of these conditions with what is recorded in hospital data. This work will underpin future studies undertaken using OFH, and provide best practice for determining chronic respiratory disease.

Public Health Research

07/10/2025

31/07/2025

TRE