FIRS The Global Impact of Respiratory Disease – Second Edition | Page 34

Recommendations
FIRS calls for these essential actions to reduce the burden of respiratory disease and improve
global health:
1. Increase public and policy makers’
awareness that respiratory health
is essential to global health and
that childhood respiratory disease
may have long-term negative
consequences on adult health by
advocating at world health meetings
and through publications and media
postings
2. Reduce, and then eliminate, the
use of all tobacco products through
universal support of the Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control
3. Adopt WHO standards, at a
minimum, to reduce ambient, indoor,
and occupational air pollution for all
countries
4. Promote universal access to quality
healthcare, including the availability of
affordable, quality-assured, essential
medicines and universal coverage for
childhood and adult immunisations,
including new conjugate vaccines
by advocacy through WHO and
government programmes
5. Improve early diagnosis of respiratory
diseases through improving awareness
and access to current procedures
and the development of new tools
through world health meetings and
publications
6. Increase education and training of
health professionals in respiratory
disease
worldwide
though
programmes of the FIRS societies,
WHO and other governmental and
non-governmental organisations
7. Standardise the monitoring of
the
prevalence,
severity
and
management of respiratory diseases
to enable development of well-
informed
national
strategies
though programmes of WHO and
governmental and non-governmental
organisations
8. Increase respiratory research to
develop programmes, tools and
strategies to better prevent and
treat respiratory diseases though
advocacy for governmental and non-
governmental research organisations
Forum of International Respiratory Societies
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