Campaigners call for action over UK’s ‘shameful’ lung health – theguardian.com

Andrew Gregory
The UK has the highest death rate for lung conditions in western Europe, research reveals, prompting calls from health leaders for urgent action to tackle the “national scandal”.
More than 100,000 people in the UK die from conditions including asthma attacks, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pneumonia every year, according to data analysis by the charity Asthma and Lung UK.
Across Europe, only Turkey has a higher respiratory death rate than the UK, analysis of data up to 2018 shows, the latest comparable data available from across the continent. The death rate is 162.7 per 100,000 people in Turkey and 134.5 in the UK.
In Germany, the rate is 76.8 while in France it is 59.1 – half the UK rate. People in the UK are three times more likely to die from lung conditions than people in Finland, which has the lowest respiratory death rate (38.4) in Europe, Asthma and Lung UK said.
It described the UK figures as “shameful”, and said that lung conditions had for too long been treated like the “poor relation compared with other major illnesses like cancer and heart disease”.