Tag Archives: VOCs

Recently, a researcher affiliated with Harvard said facility managers do more as “healthcare workers” for a workforce than physicians. The thinking: people spend the majority of their day in workplaces, and facility managers can influence that environment.

Joseph Allen, Ph.D., assistant professor of Exposure Assessment Science and director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Chan School, worked on a study that showed a correlation between cognitive function and indoor environment.

“The person most responsible for your health is the (facility manager)…more so than any medical doctor,” Allen said. “We spend so much of our time indoors that these people are critical. They can be thought of as healthcare workers because they are responsible for our health—and if that person is doing a good job, they are keeping everybody in that building healthy.”

The Study

In his study, called COGfx (short for cognitive effects), 24 white-collar workers were given cognitive performance tests to compare test-taking in green building office environments versus those with conventional construction.

The green buildings used enhanced air ventilation with low volatile organic compound production and high ventilation, while conventional buildings didn’t have improved ventilation in place. Participants were given daily cognitive assessment tests in areas such as crisis response, strategy development and information usage.

The Results

Based on the study, the workers averaged scores 101 percent higher in enhanced green buildings than not and crisis response scores were 131 percent higher in the enhanced “green” building settings. In information usage tests, scores were 299 percent higher in enhanced air ventilation environments than conventional settings, and were 288 percent higher during strategy tests.

Allen also thinks the study can shine a light on needed focus. “(These results suggest that) even modest improvements to indoor environmental quality may have a profound impact on the decision-making performance of workers,” he said. “We spend 90 percent of our time indoors, and 90 percent of the cost of a building are the occupants, yet indoor environmental quality and its impact on health and productivity are often an afterthought. We have been ignoring the 90 percent.”

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You know those TV commercials pushing probiotics, the ones claiming there’s good microorganisms in your stomach that battle the bad? Well, that’s what healthcare professionals call the Human Microbiome, a balance of microorganisms in internal organs that both regulate health and cause illness. Researchers have for years been mapping the Human Microbiome, much like in the way that predecessors mapped the Human Genome. The idea: by mapping out the microorganisms living in humans, healthcare professionals may be able to see patterns or affect change in the body by modifying the overall mix.

Now, researchers at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) are attempting to map a microbiome for manmade environments, like office buildings, in the hopes that they can understand how microbial environments affect human health.

As part of its study, NAS is looking at the ways different microbials invade built environments, as well as how humans impact these environments, like workplaces. By better understanding the interplay of people and environments, the researchers hope to determine how to influence these environments—like what kinds of building materials, ventilation systems and construction techniques would create positive microbiomes. The final report is expected to be released sometime this year.

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At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, the focus was on the “Internet of Things:” the interconnectivity of devices with lifestyles and constant feedback via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. So, you now have refrigerators that can alert you when you’re running low on milk, or home security systems that also change lighting to fit your mood.

One company, Plume Labs, introduced a wearable air quality monitor for the general public at CES. Called Flow, the device is meant to crowdsource data on air quality and monitor pollution as a person goes about their workday and evening. The thinking: With more data, consumers can make informed decisions about pollution solutions.

The monitor resembles a perforated tube with a leather-like strap that allows you to affix it to your backpack, clothing, a stroller, your bike…you name it. By taking it with you, and syncing it to an app—naturally—you’d get a readout of particulate matter and dust levels, nitrogen oxide from car emissions, ozone and volatile organic compound levels, as well as outside temperature and humidity.

Because other people around your area will also have continuous readings from their Flow devices, the app will aggregate crowd-sourced data to provide maps of problem areas, as well as places with better air.

Flow could become a good way to see what’s happening in the air around you, which is a perfect transition to actually combatting bad air, like installing AeraMax® Professional air purifiers in workplaces.

Flow will be launched nationwide later this year; pricing is yet to be determined.

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Gun range air quality problems ?

That old adage: “guns don’t kill people, people kill people?” Turns out it was wrong. Guns do kill people, albeit slowly and from an unlikely source.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently conducted a study of air quality in gun ranges, taking blood samples from people who frequently attend the firing ranges, like law enforcement personnel. Then, the CDC compared the blood samples to people who don’t go gunning.

The Results

The finding: people who frequent ranges have elevated levels of lead in their blood. The lead is the result of inhaling lead dust, lead vapor and associated fumes, the byproduct of a gun’s discharge. Lead poisoning and long-term exposure to lead dust can result in severe abdominal pain, vomiting, seizures and even organ failure. The gun range air quality can kill you?

Clearly, gun ranges should consider indoor air quality and focus on improvements—like perhaps installing AeraMax® Professional commercial-grade air purifiers in common areas. These air purifiers remove up to 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants from enclosed spaces and employ hospital-type filtration with True HEPA filters.

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We’ve reported numerous times about the respiratory health effects of pollution, but a pair of new studies are highlighting additional dangers of smog and particulate matter in the air we breathe.

The first study, conducted by Ryu Matsuo, M.D., a professor at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, drew correlations between airborne pollution and the chances of suffering a stroke during days with high levels of pollution in the air. By comparing data on 6885 cases of stroke and mapping where and when they occurred with an overlay of pollution readings, Matsuo found that increased levels of particulate matter in the air within one day of a stroke event coincided. 

The conclusion: higher levels of PM2.5 concentrations in the air create higher chances that a person can suffer a stroke within a day of the elevated levels; PM2.5 refers to air pollutants with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, which are small enough to invade airways.

The second study, conducted by King’s College London in the UK, found there was an increased risk of death after someone suffered a stroke if that person was exposed to high levels of air pollution before their stroke. Again, researchers compared stroke data with the levels of PM2.5 pollution in areas where the stroke victims resided—the higher the concentrations of pollution, the higher the risk of death after a stroke.

The studies underscore the importance of clean air for all—PM2.5 contaminants are present in indoor air was well as the outdoors. So, air purification, like that offered by the line of commercial-grade AeraMax® Professional line of air purifiers, is vital for health.

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