Epidemiology and costs of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

the Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) initiative to facilitate standardised burden studies at an international level; and 3) the ongoing discussions to set up large, long-term cohorts of patients to better define the natural history of COPD. These programmes, together with the dissemination of GOLD in .70 countries, are helping to spread a more positive message about COPD and raise awareness of its importance. This International Research Workshop on the Global Burden of COPD was organised with the aid of an unrestricted grant from GlaxoSmithKline R&D (Greenford, Middlesex, UK). The current authors were able to convince .30 researchers, most of them with an international reputation in COPD epidemiology, health economics and related areas of research, to share their experiences and vision about COPD in Vancouver, Canada. The success of the workshop was guaranteed by the quality and diversity of its speakers from five continents. The participants were from the World Health Organization (WHO), GOLD, ATS and ERS, and included cancer and cardiovascular epidemiologists. The programme was divided into three main sessions: burden; natural history and surrogates; and policy. Each speaker provided a mini-paper summarising his/her presentation. The current authors would like to sincerely thank the European Respiratory Journal for considering and disseminating these proceedings. Finally, a sad note is required. Professor Romain Pauwels was supportive of this workshop from its conception and aimed to participate actively. However, he was unable to attend due to his fragile health and finally passed away on January 3, 2005. It is to his tireless effort to fight lung disease with an international, scientificevidence approach that these proceedings are dedicated.