More than one in six people have asthma or have had it at some point in their lives. The Health Survey for England (HSE) 2018 found that 17 per cent of men and 18 per cent of women (aged 16 and over) had been diagnosed with asthma at some point.1

One in 10 adults described themselves as living with an asthma diagnosis in the past 12 months, equivalent to 5.4 million adults across the UK today. In the adult population, 7 per cent of people said they had experienced asthma symptoms in the past year, while 3 per cent indicated they had suffered no symptoms as their asthma was controlled with medication.

In addition, around 29 per cent reported having experienced wheezing at some point in their lives, with 16 per cent having suffered from it in the past 12 months.

Among children, the prevalence of wheezing and diagnosed asthma changes with age: wheezing declines in the 7-9 years age group and again in the early teens, but 18 per cent of children have experienced wheezing at some point, and 10 per cent in the past year.

Asthma prevalence increases with age, with 14 per cent of young teenagers currently living with asthma. A positive HSE finding was that the proportion of children aged 0-15 with diagnosed asthma decreased by 10 percentage points from 20 per cent in 2001-02 to 10 per cent in 2018.