CREAL. Centre for research in environmental epidemiology

• Català
• Castellano
• English

The research area about respiratory diseases includes the study of environmental and occupational determinants of respiratory diseases in children and adults including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, in national and international projects. The main focus is on the next topics:

• effects of chronic exposure to environmental pollution on respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity
• effects of indoor home exposure on respiratory morbidity
• study of occupational risk factors, in particular respiratory effects of exposure to cleaning products
• study of the interactions of the environmental exposures with genetic factors in asthma and COPD
• study of levels and effects of the physical activity in chronic respiratory diseases (asthma and COPD)

The respiratory health area also focuses on the measurement of the burden and the impact of respiratory diseases and the determinants of their appearance and evolution. We have to emphasize:

• The European Community Respiratory Health Survey studies the variations in the prevalence and incidence of asthma and its risk factors across Europe. Now CREAL participates in ECHRS III.
• The multicentric projet PAC-COPD studies the fenotipic variability in the COPD and its relation with evolution of the disease.

In collaboration with networks of research:

• The Respira Network is a network of biomedical research in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Health that involves researchers of 18 centres of Spain about respiratory diseases.
• The Global Allergy and Asthma European Network aims to integrate epidemiological, basic and clinical research on allergy and asthma throughout Europe.