England’s asthma capitals can today be revealed in MailOnline’s interactive map of every neighbourhood in the country.
One in nine residents (11.3 per cent) of Mundesley, a village on Norfolk’s coastline, are thought to have the illness – the highest rate in the whole nation.
Armed with House of Commons Library figures, we plotted the asthma prevalence estimates for all 34,000 lower super output areas (LSOA) in England.
These tiny neighbourhoods, made up of between 1,000 and 3,000 people, provide astonishingly detailed insights into pockets of the country.
Each LSOA is marked on our map, coloured by how many residents are thought to have asthma.
The darker the shade of red, the more sufferers.
You can zoom into street level to see exactly which neighbourhood you fall within.
A neighbouring sector east of Mundesley was revealed to have the second-highest rates of asthma sufferers (11.1 per cent).
Rounding out the top five came the Eastfield zone of Scarborough, a part of Driffield in East Riding of Yorkshire (10.9 per cent) and another district of Scarborough north of Eastfield (10.8 per cent).
At the other end of the scale, however, was a section of Westminster encompassing swathes of Kensington Gardens, as well as the quiet residential streets surrounding the headquarters of Imperial College London.
There, just 52 people (1.3 per cent) were estimated to be diagnosed with asthma, as per the House of Commons data.
Two other central London neighbourhoods rounded out the bottom three, contrary to beliefs that asthma hotspots might be in the heavily-polluted streets of the capital.
Scientists still don’t know for sure what causes asthma, an incurable illness suffered by millions that typically starts in childhood.
Research has repeatedly pointed towards pollution as a possible cause but the jury is still out. Doctors think it could run in families and be down to obesity, with studies showing it’s more likely in people with hay fever and eczema.
What is known, however, is that air pollution can trigger flare-ups, or ‘attacks’, which can prove fatal.
Asthma + Lung UK found around two-thirds of sufferers find poor air quality makes their asthma worse.
The NHS’s advice webpage states: ‘Symptoms happen when your airways become swollen. This makes them narrower, causing breathing problems.’
Pollution can irritate the airways, as well as pollen, stress, physical activity, cigarette.
House of Commons Library’s most up to date figures use the 2011 LSOA boundaries which were updated in 2021.
The data also only accounts for England.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) estimates 3.9m people over the age of six had asthma in 2023/24.
That equated to around 6.5 per cent of the population, or one in 15 people.
The data analysed by MailOnline suggests a correlation between higher deprivation levels and asthma.
Professor Anna Hansell, director of University of Leicester’s centre for environmental health and sustainability, said the link is ‘not surprising’.
‘It is likely to be due to multiple disadvantage starting in childhood or in the womb and acting across an individual’s lifetime,’ she said.
‘Deprived areas have poorer housing that will be more prone to damp and cold, there are higher rates of smoking and exposure to second hand smoke and there is higher air pollution exposure outdoors and poorer air quality inside’.
In terms of why higher asthma rates appeared to be in rural areas, experts said the air in the countryside can be equally toxic.
Agricultural dusts, such as grain dust and poultry dust, are the most common causes of asthma among farmers, according to the Health and Safety Executive body.
Jonathan Blades, head of policy and external affairs at Asthma + Lung UK, said: ‘People often assume that air in the countryside is clean, but in reality, some rural areas have significant levels of air pollution caused by farming practices.
‘Ammonia emissions, from livestock waste and fertiliser use, can combine with other pollutants to form harmful fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which is known to damage lung health and worsen respiratory conditions like asthma.
‘While more research is needed to understand if there is a direct link between agricultural fertiliser run-off and asthma, the government urgently needs to introduce stricter national targets to reduce air pollution across all communities – urban and rural – to ensure everyone can breathe clean air, regardless of where they live.
