People living in cold, damp, and mouldy homes are at particular risk, warned professor Nick Hopkinson, Asthma + Lung UK’s medical director and respiratory consultant.
“A home needs to be warm and dry. Cold and damp puts a stress on the immune system. And if you can see or smell mould, that’s definitely harmful,” he told Big Issue.
“It’s hazardous, both inhaling the mould and inhaling the complex organic chemicals that are being produced as the mould digests whatever it’s growing on.”
Hopkinson said individuals should ensure they receive vaccinations available to them, including for flu, a leading cause of pneumonia. But he warned that the underlying causes are systemic.
According to the findings released today, people experiencing deprivation are 36% more likely to be admitted to hospital with pneumonia.
People experiencing deprivation are 36% more likely to be admitted to hospital with pneumonia, according to the charity’s analysis. That gap has been widening for more than a decade and is directly linked to austerity policies, Hopkinson said.
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Austerity – a Conservative party authored policy of cutting public spending – is estimated to have caused 190,000 excess deaths in the UK between 2010 and 2019.
“The lungs are sort of at the cutting edge of the social determinants of health,” he explained. “How well they do their job of, you know, moving air in and out, but at the same time protecting people from developing infections, depends on a whole lot of things that happen as a consequence of austerity.
“People living in cold, damp homes, people being hungry, stressed, overcrowded, a lack of occupational protection, casual work, and so on. I mean, all of those things will increase the risk of an individual developing pneumonia. And obviously, if people already have respiratory disease and that’s not being looked after properly, then again, that the risk is greater.”
The NHS spends an estimated £1.4 billion each year treating illnesses linked to cold or damp housing.
Research published last year found that around 15 million people – 28% of the UK population – live in homes affected by damp, mould or cold. The proportion rises to 42% in the West Midlands and 39% in Yorkshire and the Humber.
The Big Issue has repeatedly reported on the health impacts of poor housing. Last year, we wrote about how 86% of residents at an East London housing estate claimed to have developed health problems after moving in.
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And in 2024, the Big Issue reported that a baby has been hospitalised six times due to damp, mould and overcrowding in a rental home medical professionals described as a “disaster waiting to happen”.
For people experiencing homelessness, respiratory problems are an even greater problem. But the experience of the pandemic shows that things do not have to be this way, Hopkinson added.
“For people who are homeless, particularly street homeless, respiratory disease is a massive issue,” he said. “During the pandemic, it was possible to end street homelessness to an extent, because we chose to do that. And that had an important impact on the health of those people. So we need to remember what’s possible when we as a society put our minds to it.”
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