Understanding racial differences of COPD patients with an ecological model: two large cohort studies in the US and Korea.

Background: There are limited data about the racial difference in the characteristics of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients who are treated at clinics. We aimed to compare sociodemographic and clinical characteristics between US and Korean COPD patients using large-scale nationwide COPD cohorts.

Methods: We used the baseline demographic and clinical data of COPD patients aged 45 years or older with at least a 10 pack-per year smoking history from the Korean COPD Subtype Study (KOCOSS,  = 1686) cohort (2012-2018) and phase I (2008-2011) of the US Genetic Epidemiology of COPD (COPDGene) study ( = 4477, 3461 were non-Hispanic whites [NHW], and 1016 were African Americans [AA]).