About Indoor Air Quality
What is indoor air quality and why do we care?
Whether at home, work, or school, most of us spend up to 90% of our time indoors. That statistic—aside from reminding us to get out and play—suggests that when it comes to our health, we should be just as concerned with the quality of our indoor environment as with the quality of the air and water outside. Some conditions common to indoor spaces, including poor ventilation and high humidity, can serve to increase the concentration of certain pollutants. Likewise, the chemical pollutants emitted by different materials inside buildings may interact, exacerbating contamination issues.
Buildings and the things we put inside them (e.g. furniture, paints, flooring) contain chemical and biological contaminants that are known to effect human health. When these contaminants volatilize into the air we breathe, they can result in acute symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, and allergic reactions, or in long-term illnesses that persist even after we’ve distanced ourselves from the source of the contamination. Some long-term health effects—cancer, developmental disorders, heart or respiratory diseases—may not manifest until long after exposure to the contaminant has ended.
Poor indoor air quality has also been shown to negatively impact productivity. Naturally, professionals who don’t feel well won’t be optimally productive, but even something as subtle as a persistent unpleasant odor, which is often associated with poor air quality, can affect overall productivity. While not all airborne contaminants are detectable by odor, the smell of new carpet or fresh paint is a sure sign of a chemical exchange between those materials and the air we breathe.