Back to Search
Start Over
Airborne particles in indoor environment of homes, schools, offices and aged care facilities: The main routes of exposure
- Source :
- Environment International, Vol 108, Iss, Pp 75-83 (2017)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- It has been shown that the exposure to airborne particulate matter is one of the most significant environmental risks people face. Since indoor environment is where people spend the majority of time, in order to protect against this risk, the origin of the particles needs to be understood: do they come from indoor, outdoor sources or both? Further, this question needs to be answered separately for each of the PM mass/number size fractions, as they originate from different sources. Numerous studies have been conducted for specific indoor environments or under specific setting. Here our aim was to go beyond the specifics of individual studies, and to explore, based on pooled data from the literature, whether there are generalizable trends in routes of exposure at homes, schools and day cares, offices and aged care facilities. To do this, we quantified the overall 24h and occupancy weighted means of PM10, PM2.5 and PN - particle number concentration. Based on this, we developed a summary of the indoor versus outdoor origin of indoor particles and compared the means to the WHO guidelines (for PM10 and PM2.5) and to the typical levels reported for urban environments (PN). We showed that the main origins of particle metrics differ from one type of indoor environment to another. For homes, outdoor air is the main origin of PM10 and PM2.5 but PN originate from indoor sources; for schools and day cares, outdoor air is the source of PN while PM10 and PM2.5 have indoor sources; and for offices, outdoor air is the source of all three particle size fractions. While each individual building is different, leading to differences in exposure and ideally necessitating its own assessment (which is very rarely done), our findings point to the existence of generalizable trends for the main types of indoor environments where people spend time, and therefore to the type of prevention measures which need to be considered in general for these environments. Keywords: Indoor particulate matter, Indoor aerosols, Indoor ultrafine particles, Home indoor particles, School indoor particles, Office indoor particles, Child care indoor particles, Aged care indoor particles
- Subjects :
- Home indoor particles
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Occupancy
ComputingMethodologies_IMAGEPROCESSINGANDCOMPUTERVISION
010501 environmental sciences
01 natural sciences
Environmental health
Air Pollution
Environmental monitoring
Private Facilities
Aged care indoor particles
Child care indoor particles
Indoor aerosols
Indoor particulate matter
Indoor ultrafine particles
Office indoor particles
School indoor particles
Air Pollution, Indoor
Humans
Particle Size
Particulate Matter
Environmental Monitoring
Homes for the Aged
Schools
Workplace
Size fractions
Pooled data
Aged care
Indoor
lcsh:Environmental sciences
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
General Environmental Science
lcsh:GE1-350
2300
Private Facility
Geography
Who guidelines
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environment International, Vol 108, Iss, Pp 75-83 (2017)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....f7e06d249fe18eecf4e8fb3c691de3f7