Lunchtime talk: Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah and Dr Gary Fuller

The impacts of air pollution being added to the death certificate of 9-year old Ella, and how the UK must strengthen air pollution limits

In December 2020, an inquest concluded that 9-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died of asthma contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution.

Ella’s frequent emergency hospital admissions were later found to be correlated with spikes in air pollution.

In this lunchtime talk, Ella’s mum Rosamund and Dr Gary Fuller from Imperial College London will look at the Coroner’s conclusion that lives would be saved if the UK moved to World Health Organisation guidelines for the most health damaging fine Particle Matter air pollution – and asked the government to address that.

The talk will look at why the UK must adopt these tougher WHO guidelines in the upcoming Environment Bill, how that is perfectly possible and how it would benefit our health.

About Rosamund

Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is a World Health Organization advocate for health and air quality and co-founder of the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, based in London.

A former teacher, Rosamund became a clean air advocate after her 9-year-old daughter, Ella, died in 2013 from a rare and severe form of asthma.

Rosamund spent several years campaigning for a second coroner’s inquest into Ella’s death to determine whether it was linked to air pollution. In a landmark decision in December 2020, the coroner ruled that it was. Ella is now the first person in the UK, and possibly the world, to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her death certificate. Rosamund intends to continue advocating to secure the right for children around world to breathe clean air.

About Gary

Dr Gary Fuller is an air pollution scientist at Imperial College London. His research interests focus on the urban air pollution, how this is changing in response to policy initiatives, and how it affects our health.

Lunchtime talks

This is part of a series of 60 minute webinars and discussions for Friends of the Earth staff, local group members and Climate Action Group activists. These talks are designed to stimulate thinking and increase awareness of different approaches to campaigning and the issues other campaigns are tackling.

They might not always be directly related to our core campaigns at Friends of the Earth. They might not even be at lunchtime! But they will give us food for thought more broadly about challenges and opportunities facing the environmental movement.

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