The Cochrane Collaboration is an international, independent, not-for-profit organisation of over 28,000 contributors from more than 100 countries, dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of health care readily available worldwide. Our contributors work together to produce systematic reviews of healthcare interventions, known as Cochrane Reviews, which are published online in The Cochrane Library. Cochrane Reviews are intended to help providers, practitioners and patients make informed decisions about health care, and are the most comprehensive, reliable and relevant source of evidence on which to base these decisions.

The Airways Group is one of 53 Cochrane Review Groups. Most of our reviews are concerned with treatments for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but we also publish reviews of interventions for sleep apnoea, pulmonary hypertension, chronic cough and bronchiectasis. The Cochrane Airways Group maintains a specialized register of controlled trials in chronic airways disease which is made available in the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL).

The Cochrane Airways Group (CAG), established in 1995, consists of five members of staff working at the editorial base in St George's University of London, Tooting, London, UK and an editorial board of 15 internationally renowned academics. The editorial base supports teams of authors in writing thier reviews by running literature searches and providing training and methodological input as well as managing the editorial peer review process for all the protocols and reviews registered with the Airways Group.

Funding

The Cochrane Airways Group is part of the international Cochrane Collaboration, an independent not-for-profit consortium dedicated to providing up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of health care. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the largest single funder of this Cochrane Review Group.

We are also grateful to St Georges University of London for support.