Mildred Thompson, the director of the PolicyLink Center for Health and Place, was a guest on The Celsias Show yesterday talking about our recent report on the environmental triggers of childhood asthma.

The show — a weekly online production from one of the web’s most interesting and influential environment sites — also featured an interview with Amy Anaruk, aka The Asthma Mom.

It’s well worth a listen…and stick around to browse through Celsias. The site offers a nuanced perspective on many national and international environmental issues.

For decades, advocates have been spinning their wheels trying to reduce health disparities. Health-care is a necessary but insufficient weapon in this battle, leading many to pursue environmental or place-based approaches to promoting health such as increasing access to healthy foods, improving air quality, and contributing to land use planning.

Now, lawyers across the country are joining this pursuit. A Boston hospital is using lawyers to demand accountability and fight for healthier living conditions for poor families. In Los Angeles, organizers are helping tenants living in unhealthy housing find legal counsel and press landlords to improve their rental properties. Strategies such as these are gaining traction and have been shown to reduce illness as well as time spent in a clinic or hospital for those who can least afford to be there.

Check out the embed player below for a recent story on Marketplace about the practice:

[MP3]

TAKE A BREATH…sounds easy huh? Well, not for one in seven children across the nation.

Asthma attacks -struggling to breathe, wheezing, gasping for air —are frightening events for children and their families. Asthma is the most prevalent chronic children’s disease in the US, affecting one in seven children nationwide and, in some communities, as many as one in every four kids. Low-income communities and communities of color are hit the hardest.

In the US, 19% of Puerto Rican children and 13% of black children have asthma. Compare that to just to 8% non-Hispanic white children.

What makes breathing hard for these children? The air they breathe in the places they live, learn and play.

Asthma triggers lurk in everyday environments. Children with asthma, and their families, live with the fear that their child’s asthma may be triggered in the most common places –their homes, schools and outdoors. Car and truck exhaust. Mold hidden in the walls of an apartment. Caustic chemicals used to clean school hallways. All of these triggers can bring on a sudden and dangerous asthma attack.

To allow children to breath easy, we need to give them clean air. Parents, environmental health and justice groups, housing organizations, and community-based organizations know that no single family can do this alone. That’s why they have forged important alliances and garnered the attention of the public and policymakers to capture important policy opportunities.

A new report by PolicyLink and The California Endowment, Breathing Easy from Home to School: Fighting the Environmental Triggers of Asthma sheds light on ways that community-based organizations and coalitions across the nation are working to address environmental triggers of asthma.

The report offers numerous policy recommendations that have already shown great promise for addressing this issue and critical lessons are lifted up from local, state, and regional efforts that can be replicated in other communities. Some of these diverse recommendations include: ensuring considerations for health impact assessments in land use planning decisions; promoting public transportation; advocating for systematic housing code enforcement; securing financial coverage for home remediation from health insurers; advocating for green cleaning products at schools; and creating pesticide-free zones near schools.

These approaches constitute an important platform for igniting a movement to alleviate—and reduce—childhood asthma. Policymakers and others can build upon these lessons to enact needed changes.

All children should be able to breathe easily—where they live, learn, and play.