The social determinants of asthma.

I n all communities, poverty is strongly related to ill health [1]. This has not generally been the pattern for asthma, where the lifetime prevalence of symptoms is usually higher in more affluent societies [2, 3], and a rising prevalence of asthma is a price paid for increasing national prosperity. This trend is probably inevitable since to date, no public health strategy for large-scale primary prevention of asthma has yet proved feasible or effective.