Mother awarded settlement for daughter’s air pollution death

The mother of the first person in the UK to have air pollution cited on their death certificate has reached a settlement with the government.

For Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah this has been a long time coming. Her nine-year-old daughter Ella died in 2013 from a fatal asthma attack, but it took an inquest in 2020 to rule the cause of death as acute respiratory failure, severe asthma and air pollution exposure.

This allowed Rosamund to file lawsuits in January against the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, the Department for Transport and the Department of Health and Social Care for compensation.

Initially, under the previous government, they said they would be fighting the claim. Now all three named departments have settled.

The most recent data available suggests Ella is still the only person in the UK with air pollution as an official cause of death, but the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities says that human-made air pollution in the UK contributes to up to 36 thousand deaths every year.