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Article History

Received: 7 October 2019

Accepted: 31 March 2020

First Online: 25 April 2020

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: CPRD has been granted Multiple Research Ethics Committee approval (05/MRE04/87) to undertake purely observational studies with external data linkages, including ONS mortality data. The present study is based on anonymized and unidentifiable CPRD data and is also approved by the Independent Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) of the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (protocol number 14_231R), which is primarily responsible for reviewing the study protocols. In the case of this observational research, no further ethical approval was deemed necessary by ISAC.

: This manuscript does not contain any individual data.

: FV currently supervises two PhD students who are employed with F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. (Basel, Switzerland and Welwyn Garden City, UK). He has not received any feeds or reimbursements for this. The topics of their PhD theses do not relate to the current manuscript.MS received speakers’ fees for a lecture on obstructive sleep apnea from the European Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (2015) as well as for a lecture on COPD and Sleep from Astra Zeneca (2016).CvD received speakers’ fees for lectures on gout and advisory board (Grünenthal) and speaker fees for a lecture on biosimilars (Amgen). The topic of the lecture and the advisory board on gout was not related to the topic of the present article.BS: none to declareJN: none to declareJD: none to declare