In the Asthma and Allergy Foundation 2009 rankings of the 100 most challenging cities to live in with asthma, St. Louis ranked number 1. Atlanta, our beloved city and the headquarters of AchooAllergy.com, showed up in the top 10 with a 9th place ranking.

More than 20 million children and adults live with asthma all over the U.S., making it one of the most common and costly diseases. Experts agree that people can not move away to help their asthma, because every city in America has different risk factors.

Instead, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation recommends that people should work with an asthma specialist to develop a good asthma management plan.

These rankings were based on a number of factors with regard to air quality including higher than average pollen scores, continued poor air quality, access to asthma specialists, medication usage, and a lack of local "100% smoke-free" laws.

See the other top 10 cities and the full report here.