Iaq

Improving asthma outcomes for underserved populations can be addressed through interventions to improve indoor air quality (IAQ). New protocol for measuring IAQ and health outcomes are imperative given advances in IAQ monitoring technology and challenges in conducting intervention research in homes. In this pilot study HEPA air purifiers and HEPA vacuum cleaners were provided to five homes with children with asthma. For 6 weeks, eight common components of air quality were measured using a low-cost multi-channel air quality monitoring device, with data conveyed directly from participant homes via Wi-Fi connection...

BACKGROUND: Indoor air quality is an important concern for kindergartener because young children are more vulnerable to the effects of poor air quality. Poor indoor air quality can cause respiratory problems and other health issues, which can negatively affect a child's ability to learn and grow. Aim of this study is to determine the trend and status of indoor air pollutants in study areas by using descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Air temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), air movement (AM), carbon dioxide (CO2), formaldehyde (HCHO), and particulate matter (PM) are the monitored parameters...

The endeavor to maintain and enhance the indoor air quality (IAQ) in historical buildings transcends the traditional boundaries of cultural heritage preservation, emerging as a pivotal public health concern [...].

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is critical to the health and wellbeing of people. As the majority of people spend greater amounts of time indoors, either in office spaces or households, the level of air pollutants in such environments is critical. Building material and furniture are known sources of air pollutants such as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and may be associated with discomfort, detrimental health of the occupants, etc. In this study, the VOCs found in a brand new office complex were monitored over a period of 6 months, with an emphasis on monitoring and quantifying harmful VOCs and identifying their emission source...

Health implications of indoor air quality (IAQ) have drawn more attention since the COVID epidemic. There are many different kinds of studies done on how IAQ affects people's well-being. There hasn't been much research that looks at the microbiological composition of the aerosol in subway transit systems. In this work, for the first time, we examined the aerosol bacterial abundance, diversity, and composition in the microbiome of the Seoul subway and train stations using DNA isolated from the PM10 samples from each station (three subway and two KTX stations)...

Respiratory disease transmission in indoor environments presents persistent challenges for health authorities, as exemplified by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This underscores the urgent necessity to investigate the dynamics of viral infection transmission within indoor environments. This systematic review delves into the methodologies of respiratory infection transmission in indoor settings and explores how the quality of indoor air (IAQ) can be controlled to alleviate this risk while considering the imperative of sustainability...

Indoor carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has been used as a proxy of the degree of ventilation and, by extension, as an indicator of the risk of contracting respiratory infections. No publications exist regarding indoor air quality (IAQ) parameters of Sri Lankan hospitals.We measured the levels of CO2 and seven other IAQ parameters during morning rush hours for three days, in outpatient departments (OPDs) and emergency treatment units (ETUs) of all 21 teaching hospitals of Sri Lanka. We measured the same parameters of outdoor air also...

Individuals typically spend most of their lives indoors, predominantly in spaces like offices and residences. Consequently, prolonged indoor exposure underscores the critical significance of maintaining optimal indoor air quality (IAQ) to safeguard one's health. The primary impediment to attaining efficient regulation of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is the challenge of monitoring the IAQ parameters, particularly within the immediate vicinity of an individual's breathing space. Current heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems lack the ability to rapidly predict and optimize the quality of indoor air...

INTRODUCTION: A child's living environment has a significant impact on their respiratory health, with exposure to poor indoor air quality (IAQ) contributing to potentially lifelong respiratory morbidity. These effects occur throughout childhood, from the antenatal period through to adolescence. Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of environmental insults, and children living in socioeconomic deprivation globally are more likely to breathe air both indoors and outdoors which poses an acute and long-term risk to their health...

Indoor air quality (IAQ) problems in school environments are very common and have significant impacts on students' performance, development and health. Indoor air conditions depend on the adopted ventilation practices, which in Mediterranean countries are essentially based on natural ventilation controlled through manual window opening. Citizen science projects directed to school communities are effective strategies to promote awareness and knowledge acquirement on IAQ and adequate ventilation management. Our multidisciplinary research team has developed a framework-SchoolAIR-based on low-cost sensors and a scalable IoT system architecture to support the improvement of IAQ in schools...

In the last few decades, indoor air quality (IAQ) has become a major threat to public health. It is the fifth leading cause of premature death globally. It has been estimated that people spend ∼90 % of their time in an indoor environment. Consequently, IAQ has significant health effects. Although IAQ-related standards and guidelines, policies, and monitoring plans have been developed in a few countries, there remain several global inequalities and challenges. This review paper aims to comprehensively synthesize the current status of widely accepted IAQ guidelines and standards...

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has made people acutely aware of the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ) and building ventilation systems, particularly in densely occupied places like offices and schools. As a result, governments and other public entities are increasingly investing in the installation, maintenance, and upgrades of ventilation systems in public buildings. However, little is known about the effect of building ventilation systems on actual IAQ and its impact on occupant behavior. This paper exploits exogenous closing and opening events of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with policy measures focusing on maximizing ventilation rates inside classrooms, to assess the effectiveness of building ventilation systems in primary schools...

The clothes and special equipment of firefighters can be a source of indoor air pollution. Nevertheless, it has not been investigated so far what the scale of the release of various compounds from such materials into the indoor air can be. The following study analysed the results of an experiment involving the passive measurement of concentrations of selected compounds, i.a. benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m,p-xylene, o-xylene, styrene, isopropylbenzene and n-propylbenzene (BTEXS) in the air of a room where firefighters' special clothing, which had been previously exposed to emissions from simulated fires, was stored...

Underground shopping malls (USMs) are often open or semi-open environments with interconnected passageways, resulting in the sharing of indoor air. However, indoor air quality (IAQ) within these spaces can vary due to many diverse emission sources. We investigated the relationships between IAQ and geographical areas, as well as IAQ and store types, within USMs, in Korea. In 2020, we studied 10 different USMs, with a total of 128 outlets. We conducted comprehensive IAQ assessments (including measurements of fine particles (PM2...

Indoor air, especially with suspended particulate matter (PM), can be a carrier of airborne infectious pathogens. Without sufficient ventilation, airborne infectious diseases can be transmitted from one person to another. Indoor air quality (IAQ) significantly impacts people's daily lives as people spend 90% of their time indoors. An industrial-grade air cleaner prototype (filtration + ultraviolet light) was previously upgraded to clean indoor air to improve IAQ on two metrics: particulate matter (PM) and viable airborne bacteria...

BACKGROUND: Asthma patients experience higher rates of hospitalizations due to exacerbations leaving a considerable clinical and economic burden on the healthcare system. The use of a simple, risk prediction tool offers a low-cost mechanism to identify these high-risk asthma patients for specialized care. The study aimed to develop and validate a risk prediction model to identify high-risk asthma patients for hospitalization due to exacerbations. METHODS: Hospital-based, case-control study was carried out among 466 asthma patients aged ≥ 20 years recruited from four tertiary care hospitals in a district of Sri Lanka to identify risk factors for asthma-related hospitalizations...

Throughout the history of occupational health risk control, ventilation has been implemented widely as a tried-and-true method to reduce exposure intensity to airborne contaminants. Proper determination of the ventilation rate merits careful consideration when addressing concerns directed toward occupational health and indoor air quality in commercial buildings, albeit this does not translate well among the current engineering and scientific community. This article aims to facilitate a better understanding and proper determination of ventilation rates as a countermeasure for occupational health risk control...

Public health depends on indoor air quality (IAQ), hence soft measurement techniques must be implemented in the subway environment for more precise and reliable monitoring of indoor particulate matter concentration levels. Adaptive boosting (AdaBoost), an ensemble learning technique, is simple to code and less prone to overfitting. Compared to a single model, it is better able to take into consideration the intricate elements included in air quality data. It is suggested to use an adaptive boosting of long short-term memory (AdaBoost-LSTM) model and kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) for ensemble learning...

Understanding particle dispersion characteristics in indoor environments is crucial for revising infection prevention guidelines through optimized engineering control. The secondary wake flow induced by human movements can disrupt the local airflow field, which enhances particle dispersion within indoor spaces. Over the years, researchers have explored the impact of human movement on indoor air quality (IAQ) and identified noteworthy findings. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive review that systematically synthesizes and summarizes the research in this field...

Indoor air quality (IAQ) of urban public transportation stations (UPTS) has adverse health impacts on the station employees and commuters. However, there is a lack of comprehensively evaluations of IAQ in waiting rooms of UPTS. Therefore, it is crucial to select appropriate air quality indexes (including fuzzy synthetic index (B), comprehensive index (P), I1 index, and indoor air quality index (IAQI)) to assess air quality and potential health risks. Our study is a subsample of the CPPEHS 2019 study, which included 224 UPTS in 126 cities of China...