Australia’s air pollution hotspots hit disadvantaged people harder

Smoke haze from bushfires are the most visible signs of air pollution, but even in years without major blazes, pockets of intense air pollution remain. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Kerry-Ann Weirick’s asthma took a turn for the worse when she moved to the western Sydney suburb of St Marys.

“I was going to hospital two or three times a year with really bad breathing problems,” she says.