Investigations were carried out during the summer season (March-June 2012) to observe the quality of indoor air by monitoring the levels of some selected air pollutants at 15 different houses covering the urban areas of Lucknow City. Concentrations of CO2, CO, PM10, PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 were monitored indoors and outdoors simultaneously and I/O ratios were calculated. Regression analysis for I/O relationship was performed to assess the contribution of outdoor sources to indoor air quality. Air Quality Index (AQI) for indoor air was also calculated to have an idea about the quality of indoor air and their health effects. In collaboration with the medical college doctors of the city, we surveyed 197 persons to find out different diseases/symptoms being faced due to indoor air pollution. Results of the study revealed that the average levels of PM10 and PM2.5 were above the permissible limits laid by WHO at densely populated and roadside sites with 189 μg/m(3) (PM2.5 76 μg/m(3)) and 226 μg/m(3) (PM2.5 91 μg/m(3)) respectively. Correlation analysis showed positive results. At sites like Alambagh and Chowk, the indoor AQI range was alarming with the values of 302 and 209. Survey results also showed that 46% of urban people suffered from acute respiratory infections like bronchial asthma, headache, depression and dizziness and these people were mostly from Roadside colonies.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.106 | DOI Listing |
Environ Res
January 2025
Department of Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, United States. Electronic address:
The growing impact of climate change and escalating wildfire seasons has led to heightened ambient air pollution, potentially affecting children's sleep health. However, current epidemiological research often relies on outdoor weather data to model the environmental impacts on sleep health, potentially mischaracterizing the actual bedroom environment. To address these challenges, we conducted experiments to investigate the relationships among ambient, indoor, and personal exposure to PM concentrations and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children.
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January 2025
School of Architecture, Southeast University, 2 Sipailou, Nanjing 210096, China.
Air-source heat pumps are popular in buildings to provide cooling and heating. However, how the air discharged by air-source heat pump outdoor units affects the dispersion of air pollutants in urban street canyons remains poorly understood. This study used coupled simulations to examine the effects that air-source heat pump outdoor units had on vehicle-induced indoor and outdoor air pollution in an urban street canyon and how these effects varied based on the arrangement of outdoor units or the presence of building envelope components (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Infect Public Health
January 2025
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College St., Toronto, Ontario M5T 3M7, Canada; Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, 35 St. George St, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A4, Canada.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian public health advisors and politicians have shared mixed messages about the utility of portable air filters (PAFs) for mitigating the transmission of airborne infectious diseases. Some public health advisors and decision-makers have also suggested that PAFs are cumbersome or require expert advice. We take this opportunity to review evidence and address myths about PAFs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS EST Air
January 2025
Lyles School of Civil & Construction Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States.
Commercial HVAC systems intended to mitigate indoor air pollution are operated based on standards that exclude aerosols with smaller diameters, such as ultrafine particles (UFPs, D ≤ 100 nm), which dominate a large proportion of indoor and outdoor number-based particle size distributions. UFPs generated from occupant activities or infiltrating from the outdoors can be recirculated and accumulate indoors when they are not successfully filtered by an air handling unit. Monitoring UFPs in real occupied environments is vital to understanding these source and mitigation dynamics, but capturing their rapid transience across multiple locations can be challenging due to high-cost instrumentation.
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January 2025
Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
Wildfires at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) have been increasing in frequency over recent decades due to increased human development and shifting climatic patterns. The work presented here focuses on the impacts of a WUI fire on indoor air using field measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by Proton-Transfer-Reaction Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (PTR-TOF-MS). We found a slow decrease in VOC mixing ratios over the course of roughly 5 weeks starting 10 days after the fire, and those levels decreased to ∼20% of the initial indoor value on average.
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