Wroclaw Medical University PURE Poland study

For years, Wroclaw Medical University has been realizing its mission of protecting and building the health of the inhabitants of Lower Silesia. The pioneer of this research was professor Antoni Falkiewicz – one of the most eminent representatives of Polish medicine; an outstanding physician, practitioner and diagnostician, a great teacher, the co-founder of postwar internal medicine in Poland, and the educator of many generations of physicians and scientists. Right after World War II professor Falkiewicz launched a large-scale population study of the prevalence of hypertension and thyroid goiter in the population of Lower Silesia. As the rector of Wroclaw Medical University I am proud to continue this long tradition of public health studies in Lower Silesia.
I am also delighted to mark the tenth anniversary of the PURE Poland prospective cohort study. The study is conducted by the Wroclaw Medical University in collaboration with McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and with the Health Promotion Foundation, Poland. Poland is one of 21 countries from every continent, including China, India, Brazil and Sweden, taking part in the study. Over the last decade, a cohort of over 150 000 people has been created worldwide. I am proud that our Alma Mater is taking part in this huge international medical project.
The PURE Poland study has been created in 2007 and is conducted and expanded by the Wroclaw Medical University. An increasing number of our University faculty and staff are engaged in its realization. Several PhD projects and two postdoctoral dissertations were based on the study. Scientific work based on the study has been published in some of the most important medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, and many others.
The designer and global coordinator of the PURE study is Professor Salim Yusuf, the President of the World Heart Federation, and one of the leading public health researchers in the world. Professor Yusuf, on the initiative of professor Witold Zatoński (a graduate of our University in 1966 and professor Falkiewicz’s student) was conferred the degree of doctor Honoris Causa of the Wroclaw Medical University on 12 March 2015. The promoter of the award was professor Andrzej Szuba and the reviewer professor Piotr Ponikowski.
I would like to announce a series of articles concerning major health issues assessed within the PURE Poland study which are going to be published in the new medical journal – Journal of Health Inequalities – and are going to be part of a monograph dedicated to PURE study findings.

Disclosure

Author reports no conflict of interest.