More than 569 million people across the world live with chronic respiratory diseases, and around 4.2 million lives are lost to them every year. They are the fourth leading cause of mortality worldwide. Yet conditions such as severe asthma and COPD remain far too low on the public policy agenda. To take this conversation beyond the scale of the problem and towards practical action, a two day workshop on advancing chronic respiratory disease policy was organised in Berlin, ahead of the World Health Summit. I joined fellow parliamentarians from 16 countries, along with technical experts from @UNITE_MPNetwork and the Global Health Policy Lab, to look closely at the policy gaps, country specific priorities and, importantly, what can actually be done within our respective health systems. The discussions focused on strengthening national respiratory health policies, bringing respiratory health into the broader NCD agenda, translating global commitments into concrete legislative and policy action, and developing practical parliamentary roadmaps and a Respiratory Health Parliamentary Toolkit that policymakers can take back and use. The numbers tell us why this cannot wait. We have the evidence. We know the burden. What matters now is turning that knowledge into policy, and policy into better access to diagnosis, medicines and care. That is ultimately how public health commitments should be measured, by the difference they make in people’s lives. #RespiratoryHealth #ChronicRespiratoryDisease #GlobalHealth #PublicHealth