About

Overview

People spend most of their lives in a variety of indoor environments. This occurs principally in homes, but also in schools, workplaces, and health and care environments. Scientists, practitioners and the public are increasingly aware of the impact of poor quality buildings on health and wellbeing, as emphasized in the last few years with the tragic death of Awaab Ishak from indoor mold and the role of ventilation design in the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Poor outdoor air quality from PM2.5, NO2, and ozone exposures was estimated to contribute to 17,000 premature deaths and 345,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years lost in 2021 in the UK, making it the single most important environmental contributor to the burden of disease. However, there is much we still do not understand about indoor air quality. We cannot simply transfer our understanding from outside air research to the complex indoor environment - both the composition of pollutants and the airflows that carry them are vastly different, creating a complex set of exposures we do not yet understand. 

The drive to net-zero provides substantial opportunities for building and retrofitting buildings to make them healthier as well as energy efficient. Yet, this also poses substantial risks for increasing poor building quality, and reducing air exchange and dilution of pollutants. Further, it is well understood that a focus on the performance of an engineered system without considering the role of the users leads to underperforming systems. This has been well demonstrated in buildings where ventilation systems are often not used appropriately, are ill maintained, and are sometimes even switched off and covered up, all resulting in a buildup of pollutants and often a reduction in air quality post retrofit. 

Through this network we intend to tackle the challenge of creating healthier indoor air for everyone, including a focus on the most vulnerable. We will achieve this we will create collaborations and co-design research projects around the question “How much and what is in PM2.5 indoors, what are its health impacts, and what are the most effective and equitable ways to reduce those impacts?”. 

Vision

Our vision is to create a comprehensive roadmap that enables the UK to develop engineering interventions to make indoor environments healthy. Understanding of the health impacts of indoor air quality is very limited and cannot be simply inferred from our knowledge of outdoor air – PM2.5 air pollution is a major contributor to poor health outdoors and indoors but its specific constituents in indoor settings are much less understood. Understanding indoor air is complex. Inequalities, such as poverty, disproportionately affect indoor environmental quality, and the success of engineering interventions often fall short of those expected due to human behaviour. To tackle this challenge in this network we will focus on the question: 

How much and what is in PM2.5 indoors, what are its health impacts, and what are the most effective and equitable ways to reduce those impacts? 

This will serve as a catalyst for engaging the engineering and scientific communities in collaborative research to promote healthier indoor air for all.

Activities

We will be running a series of workshops, sandpits and feasibility studies. to build collaborations in the air quality field. If you are interested in getting involved please sign up to our mailing list.