About the Authors

Tetyana Kendzerska

tkendzerska@toh.ca

Affiliations Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON/CA, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Ottawa, ON/CA, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, ON/CA, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON/CA

Mohsen Sadatsafavi

Affiliation University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC/CA

Shawn D. Aaron

Affiliation Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON/CA

Teresa M. To

Affiliations Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, ON/CA, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON/CA, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON/CA, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto/CA

M. Diane Lougheed

Affiliation Queen's University, Kingston, ON/CA

J. Mark FitzGerald

Affiliation University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC/CA

Andrea S. Gershon

Affiliations Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, ON/CA, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON/CA, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON/CA, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto/CA, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON/CA

for the Canadian Respiratory Research Network

Membership of the Canadian Respiratory Research Network is provided in the Acknowledgments Section.

Competing Interests

The Canadian Respiratory Research Network (CRRN) is supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research - Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health; Canadian Lung Association/ Canadian Thoracic Society; British Columbia Lung Association; and Industry Partners Boehringer-Ingelheim Canada Ltd, AstraZeneca Canada Inc., and Novartis Canada Ltd. Dr. Kendzerska is supported by the CRRN Fellowship Training Award which was supported by the above funding Sponsors and as well by GlaxoSmithKline Inc. Dr. Lougheed has received research funding not related to this study paid directly to Queen’s University from GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen and Hoffmann LaRoche. This study was supported by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), which is funded by an annual grant from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC). The opinions, results and conclusions reported in this paper are those of the authors and are independent from the funding sources. No endorsement by ICES or the Ontario MOHLTC is intended or should be inferred. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: TK MS SA TT MDL JMF AG. Data curation: TK AG. Formal analysis: TK AG. Funding acquisition: MS SA TT AG. Investigation: TK MS SA TT MDL JMF AG. Methodology: TK MS SA TT MDL JMF AG. Project administration: TK AG. Resources: TK MS SA TT MDL JMF AG. Software: TK AG. Supervision: AG SA. Visualization: TK MS SA TT MDL JMF AG. Writing – original draft: TK AG. Writing – review & editing: TK MS SA TT MDL JMF AG.