Interpretation of Spirometry in Saskatchewan First Nations Adults

Originally Published in: Mark E. Fenton, Brian L. Graham, Sanja Stanojevic, Lorna Whitford, and Laurie Ironstand. Interpretation of Spirometry in Saskatchewan First Nations Adults. Annals of the American Thoracic Society 2018;Vol. 15:1237-1239. DOI: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.201711-909RL Copyright © 2018 the American Thoracic Society The final publication is available at https://doi.org/10.1513/AnnalsATS.201711-909RL.Saskatchewan Health Research FoundationPeer ReviewedThe Canadian First Nations and Inuit communities bear a large burden of respiratory disease, with increased rates of smoking, respiratory infections, asthma, chronic obstructive lung disease, and hospitalizations (1). Identification of respiratory disease and classification has relied on spirometric reference values from white individuals, or in the case of the Global Lung Initiative (GLI) dataset, “other” (2), because there are no published reference values for Canadian First Nations individuals. Several studies have suggested that spirometric values for Canadian Inuit populations may be different from those for white populations (3–7), but these observations are not consistent (7–10). This study investigated whether lung function measured in Plains Cree adults differed from that expected in white adults. Part of the data reported in this letter was presented at the 2014 American Thoracic Society International Conference in abstract form (11)