Asthma, while common, is not benign. When uncontrolled, the condition can keep people up at night coughing and send them to the emergency room with inflamed, narrowed airways making it difficult to breathe. The condition is also chronic, frequently affecting people from childhood up through old age, and requires frequent care to be kept under control, putting people who cannot see a doctor regularly at a major disadvantage.<\/p>\n
Last year, Detroit was ranked No. 3 on the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America\u2019s annual Asthma Capitals report, which ranks the most challenging cities for residents with asthma. This year, it took the top spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never good to be number one when you\u2019re on a report like this,\u201d said John Dowling, coordinator of the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services\u2019 Asthma Prevention and Control Program. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone really likes seeing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The September report<\/a> evaluates cities by three criteria: asthma prevalence, emergency department visits due to asthma attacks and asthma-related deaths. Detroit has consistently been among the worst-ranked cities, says Hannah Jaffee, research director at the AAFA. This year, it had the second-highest asthma prevalence of any city in the U.S. and a large number of emergency department visits and deaths due to asthma, which propelled it into the report\u2019s No. 1 position.<\/p>\n Despite the ranking, local leaders and researchers take heart in public health initiatives that they say are slowly moving the needle on reducing asthma triggers and improving access to specialized care in the city. But some experts worry climate change will quickly make life more difficult for people with asthma\u2014especially as the Trump administration rolls back key air pollution regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the ground, asthma specialists are already noticing their patients\u2019 conditions worsening.<\/p>\n \u201cEach year it gets worse, and I\u2019ve had a lot of patients come to my office with worsening asthma,\u201d said Garen Wolff, an allergist and immunologist working in Detroit. \u201cBecause of the wildfires, the outdoors has become an indoor problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Extreme weather events\u2014including wildfires and severe storms\u2014are becoming more common and intense due to climate change, which also worries some asthma experts. These events can increase levels of mold and smoke in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, warmer air can trap these pollutants at the ground level.<\/p>\n A warming climate and more greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, in the air also allow plants to pollinate for longer, which can intensify seasonal allergies and asthma symptoms.<\/p>\n \u201cAnywhere that allergies are getting worse, either due to climate change or other factors, asthma gets worse,\u201d said Purvi Parikh, an immunologist in the Allergy & Asthma Network, a Virginia-based nonprofit that supports asthma research and advocacy efforts. \u201cThat Detroit is now leading the country is very concerning, because this is not a place that\u2019s known to have a very warm climate.\u201d<\/p>\n With so many factors working against people with asthma in Detroit, the city\u2019s efforts to mitigate the condition\u2019s harms have had to cover a broad range of social and medical issues. Detroit\u2019s 14.8 percent of residents with asthma is already higher than the Michigan average<\/a> of 11.5 percent, but the difference is even more striking for some groups, said Beth Anderson, who tracks Michigan asthma data as a chronic disease epidemiologist at the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over 20 percent of people with a disability have asthma in Detroit, compared to the state average of 14.7 percent. For people below the poverty line, it is 31.9 percent in Detroit versus 13.5 percent on average in Michigan. And the most-stark difference is for Black residents: 75.9 percent live with asthma, compared to the Michigan average of 13.2 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAsthma is very multi-layered,\u201d Dowling said. \u201cThere are just a lot of areas you have to address, and that makes it very challenging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n Adding to these challenges, the Trump administration has sought to roll back several key environmental protection measures. In March, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced<\/a> the end of the \u201cGood Neighbor Plan,\u201d which protected millions of people from breathing polluted air in states downwind from power plants lacking pollution controls, and the \u201creconsideration\u201d of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which require coal and oil power plants to limit air pollution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Through the end of March 2025, the EPA also accepted<\/a> requests for \u201cPresidential Exemptions\u201d from Clean Air Act regulations\u2014exemptions the administration may have solicited from industry groups, according to a recent investigation<\/a> by the Environmental Defense Fund.<\/p>\n These deregulatory actions put more pressure on local and state agencies to uphold protections and programs that keep people with asthma safe.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is more work to be done in terms of asthma legislation and asthma policy in the years or months to come,\u201d says Kezia Ofosu Atta, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association in Michigan.<\/p>\n Despite these mounting challenges at the national level, Dowling said that, because Detroit\u2019s issues with asthma management are widely known through reports like the AAFA\u2019s, many local organizations are already years into their work to improve conditions in the city.<\/p>\n![\"Smoke](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2228688127.jpg\"\/)
Smoke from Canadian wildfires covers the downtown Detroit skyline on August 4. Credit: Jim West\/UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n
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