Introduction

Welcome to the first week of the course. We are excited to be starting this journey with you. During this first week you will have the opportunity to introduce yourself to your fellow peers on the course, share something about your work and become familiar with FutureLearn.

In this first week we will plan to:

• Consider the ‘big picture’ and to look at the global burden of chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs)
• Explore the impact of CRDs for countries, communities and individuals
• Examine why CRDs are common in low resource settings; how public health strategies may aid prevention and management and the importance of primary and community care.
• Discuss how to address tobacco dependence, which is a major risk factor in CRDs