The burden of chronic respiratory diseases in the Asia-Pacific region ——Now and the future

<正> Burden of respiratory diseaseThe concept of the total burden of a disease is tradi-tionally described by computing its prevalence and in-cidence, the morbidity and mortality. In recentyears, quantification of the economic and social bur-den caused by the disease has become increasingly rel-evant in an age of rapidly escalating health care ex-penditure and an changing populations demographics.