Asthma facts & figures

  • Around five million people in the UK are receiving treatment for asthma. This figure includes 1.1 million children (incidence: 1 in 11) and 4.3 million adults (incidence: 1 in 12)
  • There were 1,200 deaths from asthma in the UK in 2006. On average, three people per day or one person every seven hours dies from asthma
  • Around three-quarters of hospital admissions for asthma are avoidable, while up to nine out of ten of the deaths from asthma are preventable
  • Smoking during pregnancy brings a 35 per cent increased risk of your baby being wheezy or having breathing difficulties
  • Children whose parents smoke are 1.5 times more likely to develop asthma. Nearly a third of all long-term childhood illnesses are due to doctor-diagnosed asthma
  • Asthma costs the NHS over £996 million per year
  • Over 12.7 million working days are lost to asthma each year
  • A quarter of people who have been admitted to hospital for an asthma attack say they receive no information about follow-up treatment

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