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Indoor Air Quality: a Time for Recognition

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Indoor Air Quality: a Time for Recognition EMFeatureFeature Indoor Air Quality: A Time for Recognition by Richard L. Corsi It can be argued that the field of indoor air quality has not progressed to the same extent as other environmental fields. It can also be argued that IAQ deserves far more attention than it has received. So, starting this month and running through December, EM will publish a series of articles that discuss some of the many issues now facing those working in the indoor environmental sciences. century and a half ago, John Griscom, a New York While important progress has been made in our under- surgeon, described the effects of indoor air on hu- standing of indoor air pollution, it can be reasonably argued A man health in his book, The Uses and Abuses of Air: that the field of indoor air quality, especially in nonindustrial Showing its Influence in Sustaining Life, and Producing Disease; settings, has not progressed to the same extent as other envi- with Remarks on the Ventilation of Houses.1 Much of what ronmental fields in the past 150 years. In this paper, I have Griscom described in 1850 continues to concern those in the attempted to provide a broad overview of the importance of indoor air quality field today. Consider his description of in- indoor air quality and some of the sources that contribute to fant exposure to impure indoor air: “First, as a tender infant, its degradation. I have also attempted to make an argument he scarcely has made his entrance into the great ocean of air, for why the field of indoor air quality deserves far more atten- and uttered his plaintive petition for a portion of the new tion than it has received, including the need for an immedi- element to expand his little chest, ere, by the careful nurse, he ate and significant expansion of public education, research, is tucked away under the coverlid ….. lest the already impure and regulatory action. Beginning with this issue of EM, the air of the chamber should be too strong for his weak organs.” reader will find several papers on issues related to IAQ. How- Griscom further described problems of overcrowded and ever, the reader is cautioned that these papers reflect only a poorly ventilated classrooms and chambers: “His next posi- small subset of the many issues now facing those in the tion is as the schoolboy, and here we find him, with from indoor environmental sciences, and is encouraged to learn five to five hundred others, immured between closed walls more from the references and Web sites provided in this and ….. the carbonic acid thrown off from his lungs as excre- accompanying papers. mentitious poison, until, in the morning, he creeps from his bed in a dripping sweat and unrefreshed.” Finally, he de- THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN IAQ PROBLEMS scribed the general health effects of indoor air pollution, rec- Modern indoor air quality problems are generally traced to ognizing the potential for chronic impacts, but also alluding the end of World War II, when there was a great demand for to several symptoms that are now associated with the phe- inexpensive housing in the United States. Suburbs sprang up nomenon of “sick building syndrome” (SBS). Griscom wrote, across America. Homes were built on smaller lots and garages “Wherever we find a civilized being domiciled …… we find were attached directly to the living space, inadvertently him breathing an atmosphere more or less impure. Very of- allowing for the entry of automobile exhaust and constitu- ten the effects are demonstrated at the moment in flushing ents of evaporative emissions into that space. Homes were also of face, perspiration, drowsiness, headaches, vertigo, and constructed of less expensive building materials composed of fainting, and very frequently at more remote periods, by the adhesives and other components that off-gas a wide range of development of more profound and serious diseases of the pollutants to the indoor environment. For the next several lung, heart, head, and stomach.” decades there was an increasing demand for furnishings and 10 EM September 2000 consumer products that made life easier. Manufacturers re- garten and 12th-grade, the equivalent of 1.6 complete years sponded by producing carpet and other flooring material, in classroom settings. easy-to-use cleaners, personal care products, air fresheners, pes- Humans around the world have “evolved” into indoor crea- ticides, and more. These products generally improved the qual- tures. But are indoor environments really safe shelters? ity of life; however, the chemicals they emitted, many of which To many, there is comfort in believing that the places where are now known to be irritants, allergens, toxicants, and car- they and their children spend most of their time are safe cinogens, degraded the quality of indoor air. havens. In fact, on “smoggy” days the public is often warned While a vast array of new sources of air pollution were to stay indoors. However, during the past 20 years there has added to the interior of buildings, most of these buildings re- been a growing base of scientific evidence that all points to mained relatively “leaky,” either by the intentional the fact that many, if not most, of these indoor actions of their occupants, for example, environments are of lower environmental opening windows, or via cracks in the quality than the outdoor environment. building envelope, for example, The U.S. Environmental Protec- openings around doors and tion Agency’s (EPA) Total Expo- windows. The intake of out- sure Assessment Methodology door air was a classic ex- (TEAM) study was a bench- ample of dilution being the mark effort intended to as- solution to indoor air pol- sess everyday exposure of lution. This began to the general population to change in the 1950s with a wide range of pollut- the addition of air condi- ants.4 It was composed of tioning systems in some a large number of separate homes and other buildings, studies involving personal, a trend that grew significantly indoor and outdoor moni- throughout the 1960s and toring of 3000 subjects living 1970s, resulting in a lessened de- in 14 states. Results of the sire to intentionally ventilate TEAM study clearly demon- homes, schools, and offices. In 1973– strated that most Americans have 1974 the world was shaken by an energy their greatest exposure to toxic pollutants “crisis” that led to incentives for homeowners, indoors, and that the primary sources of many of commercial building owners, and even school districts, to con- these pollutants are ordinary consumer products and build- serve energy by “weather proofing” buildings. Such actions ing materials. In fact, the TEAM study indicated that in- included significant reductions in the amount of unintentional door levels of many potentially toxic organic compounds and intentional building ventilation, and accumulation of are typically two to five times, and sometimes as much as indoor pollutants. hundreds of times, greater indoors than outdoors. Similar results have been observed in various building environments THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT AS A SHELTER around the world.5-8 Various studies carried out during the past eight years indicate While it has been established that indoor air is often far that average Americans spend between 87 and 90% of their more polluted than outdoor air, the same might also be said time indoors, only about 5 to 7% outdoors, and the remain- of indoor materials and surfaces. For example, carpet has re- der in transit.2-3 Looking at it another way, the average Ameri- ceived significant attention as a reservoir for pesticides and can spends 5–18 hours indoors for every hour spent outdoors, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), as well as for lead and on average, approximately two-thirds of their indoor time and bio-contaminants.9 Concerns regarding carpet and other is spent in the home. Those that spend the most time in the flooring materials are generally heightened by the fact that home include the most susceptible to indoor air pollution: infants spend a significant fraction of their time in close prox- young children, pregnant women, the chronically ill, and the imity to, or in direct contact with, the floor. In an eye-open- elderly. However, there are other indoor environments within ing study completed in the early 1990s, Buckley and Camann which Americans spend a significant amount of time. Many measured pesticide and PAH levels in the carpet of 362 working adults spend nearly a quarter of their time (or nearly midwestern homes.10 The pesticide DDT, banned in 1972, was 10 years over a typical career) in office buildings. Most observed in the carpet of nearly 25% of the homes. Levels of children spend 14,000 hours in classrooms between kinder- PAHs in the carpet of more than 50% of the homes were greater September 2000 EM 11 EM Feature EFFECTS ON NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY “The existing literature offers relatively strong evidence that reduced respiratory disease; $2 to $4 billion from reduced characteristics of buildings and indoor environments allergies and asthma; $15 to $40 billion from reduced significantly influence prevalences of respiratory disease, allergy symptoms of sick building syndrome; and $20 to $200 billion and asthma symptoms, symptoms of sick building syndrome, from direct improvements in worker performance that are and worker performance. Theoretical considerations, and unrelated to health. In two example calculations, the potential limited empirical data, suggest that existing technologies and financial benefits of improving indoor environments exceed procedures can improve indoor environments in a manner that costs by factors of 9 and 14. Further research is recommended significantly increases health and productivity. At present, we to develop more precise and compelling benefit-cost data that can develop only crude estimates of the magnitude of are needed to motivate changes in building codes, designs, productivity gains that may be obtained by providing better and operation and maintenance policies.” indoor environments; however, the projected gains are very Extracted from Fisk, W.J.
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