Epidemiology of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Brazil: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in developing countries; however, few systematic reviews are available in the literature. This review examines the prevalence of COPD in the Brazilian population. For this purpose, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted of epidemiological observational studies indexed in the databases PubMed, Cochrane, Ovid, Scopus, ScienceDirect, SciELO, Lilacs, and Google Scholar published up to May 2018. The prevalence was estimated using a random effects model. Of the 1,182 articles identified, 12 were eligible. The prevalence of COPD in Brazil was 17% (95%CI: 13-22; I2 = 94%) and the region with the highest prevalence of COPD was the Center-western region (25%), followed by the Southeastern region (23%). The Southern region had the lowest prevalence among the studies (12%). We found that Brazil has a high occurrence of COPD, higher than the estimates of Latin American and world population Hence, additional studies are necessary to support intervention strategies, as well as formulation of specific public health policies to control and prevent COPD.