Ella’s Law and Awaab’s Law: How does our built environment shape our health?

Last week, Siri was invited to join the APPG meeting on healthy homes and buildings, focussing on how clean air and clean water impact population health.

1 in 10 people are living in poor quality housing at a yearly cost of £1.4 billion to the NHS. The Healthy Homes and Buildings All Party Parliamentary Group shines a light on a burgeoning public health problem which needs addressing. How can we make sure our homes and buildings are fit for purpose and comfortable for all?

Industry, charities and activists were invited to suggest actions and solutions to the APPG by Insights, barriers, challenges and suggested actions were presented by Dr Beccy Cooper MP  and William Roberts of the Royal Society of Public Health. Siri’s contribution was on the importance of internal air quality. We spend 90% of our time indoors, so the air in our homes, schools and workplaces really counts. Improving air quality is an important part of creating healthy environments.  Monitoring makes air pollution more visible.

Given that most of us spend the majority of our time “indoors”, Parliament needs to recognise that improving indoor air quality is just as much a priority as tackling outdoor air quality. Clean air and water will have enormous impact on the health of the population and on nature – it’s all connected.

Others at the APPG session included Chloe Owen, of Asthma + Lung UK, and Erica Popplewell of River Action UK, and representatives from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.

What else can we do?

Advocate for Ella’s law.  Ella Robertas family foundation, fronted by Ella’s mother Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE, has been fighting for over 12 years. Her daughter Ella was the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as cause of death on her death certificate. Ella’s Law aims to update the Clean Air Act 1956 by introducing stricter air quality limits and expanding monitoring in homes, public spaces and workplaces.

Siri said “The clear takeaway is to support and shout loudly about Ella’s law. As long as the right to clean air isn’t legally binding, air pollution will continue to cause premature deaths, neurological damage, asthma and cancers. We don’t see it, so we pretend it’s not happening.”

Awaab’s Law and Ellas’s Law are testaments to the fatal reality of damp mould and air pollution. Everyone involved in shaping the places where we live work and play should act.

Human health and planetary health are two sides of the same coin. Designing for human flourishing is always aligned with nature. We can do this, it requires long term thinking and ambition, bit we will all benefit.