Many children with food allergies also have asthma. In fact, 8.3% of children have asthma. It is the leading chronic disease in children.

A child can have asthma because of personal factors like genetics and medical history.

But air pollution, poverty, pollen and the number of asthma specialists can affect who gets asthma. In fact, children are more vulnerable to asthma because of community factors.

On May 7, 2019, World Asthma Day, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) released its 2019 Asthma Capitals Report™. This report ranks the top 100 most challenging places in America to live with asthma. Kids With Food Allergies is a division of AAFA.

We created this report to show how community factors can affect asthma rates. We ranked each city based on these asthma outcomes:

• Asthma prevalence (or occurrence)
• Asthma-related emergency room visits
• Asthma-related deaths
  

The report looks at these outcomes. It also looks at risk factors that can affect these outcomes. They include poverty, lack of health insurance, air quality, pollen count, long-term control medicine use, quick-relief medicine use, smoke-free laws and access to asthma specialists.

We included personal stories from residents living in some of our top cities. We interviewed experts about regional “Asthma Belts,” as well.

To see the full list of Top 100 Asthma Capitals, download our report.

 
The 2019 Asthma Capitals™ report is an independent research project of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America with sponsorship from Sanofi Genzyme and Regeneron.