Indoor Air Quality Essay

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Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) refers to the quality of air within and around buildings and structures. Poor quality of indoor air, due to contaminants, can cause discomfort and negative health outcomes.1 Over the recent years, urban dwellers spend about 58%-78% of their time in an indoor environment.1 The increase in newer construction buildings are designed to make the spaces more airtight and the recycled air with smaller proportion of new air circulating from the outside to inside, in order to be more energy efficient.1 This lack of natural ventilations in buildings leads to risk of exposure to harmful contaminants.
Background & public health implications
The national burden of disease due to poor indoor air quality from solid fuel use was first assessed in 2002.2 A Legionnaire’s disease outbreak in 1976 is the most discussed case of illness due to poor indoor environment.1 Poor indoor air quality can cause changes in a person’s health in a wide array of acute and chronic symptoms and as specific illnesses.1 The exposure to indoor air pollution is associated with increase in risk of acute lower respiratory infections …show more content…

There are different origins of indoor air pollution: the occupants; inadequate materials or materials with defects used in the construction of the building; the work performed within, increase or improper use of normal products such as pesticides; disinfectants, cleaning and polishing products, etc.; combustion gases from smoking, cooking areas, and laboratories; and cross-contamination from other poorly ventilated zones.1 Due to differences in the volumes of air, substances emitted in indoor air have lesser opportunity to dilute than the outdoor air.1 Other sources of contaminants are combustion in stationary sources (power stations), combustion in moving sources (vehicles); and industrial processes.1 There are also naturally generated contaminants in the air, such as particles of volcanic dust, soil and sea salt, and spores and

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