Asians tend to occupy some of the most overcrowded and low quality housing in the country. Poor housing has been shown to lead to bronchial problems and other respiratory infections, especially among children.

Some health researchers have discovered there is the unequal access to medical care, which is experienced by some ethnic minority groups. This may be less to do with direct racism than what might be termed “institutional racism". This means that language differences may present a barrier, as may lack of access to a woman doctor for some Asian women. Some doctors may have limited knowledge of certain illnesses that affect particular ethnic groups.

Another reason of poor treatment of ethnic minorities is that Black people and Asians are more likely to be attacked and subjected to abuse. It is because they often experience the consequent fear of direct physical and/or verbal violence. A home office study of officially reported incidents of racial victimisation found that the rate for Asians was 50 times the rate of white people and the rate for African-Caribbean people was over 36 times that for white people. This together with a concentration of workers in hazardous industries, and poor quality/overcrowded housing in unsafe environments is a good explanation of the over-representation of black people in the category of deaths termed “Accidents, Poisonings and Violence".