Improving indoor air quality is not the responsibility of individuals, one industry, one profession or one government department. We must work together to make safe air for children a reality.
Below is an extract of the recommendations made by the Indoor Air Quality Working Party from pages 18-19 of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Royal College of Physicians (2020) publication: The inside story: Health effects of indoor air quality on children and young people. You can find out more about the report here (opens new tab) and download the full report here
15. UK Research Councils’ should set the following priorities for indoor air quality research:
(a) Establish large-scale research of UK homes and schools on the indoor air quality, linking this with health and public health datasets. This should include provisions to monitor the impact of changes over time, to identify if improvements in indoor air are resulting in better health outcomes.
(b) Further research into the potential adverse health effects for children is needed: to study a wider array of indoor pollutants; to increase the number of studies set in the UK; to study the effects from exposures in schools and nursery or day-care settings; for children with chronic respiratory conditions such as cystic fibrosis that may place them at greater risk.
(c) Gather evidence on emissions and ventilation rates in buildings of differing age and design. This should identify the most cost-effective interventions and design choices for improving indoor air quality and lowering energy demand and carbon emissions.
(d) Measure emissions and exposure in a more realistic indoor environment such as the House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry (HOMEChem)38 experiments.
(e) Set a research design to test the safety of chemicals used in buildings and household products under realistic indoor conditions. The test conditions should mimic an indoor environment, with mixtures of pollutants and the effects of humans included.
We welcome the NICE recommendations for research in the 2020 NICE guidelines for ‘Indoor air quality at home’. In September 2019, the National Environment Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, and the Met Office have jointly announced new research funding. This provides a Strategic Priorities Fund for research which proactively addresses air quality challenges to protect human health. It is important that this research considers and includes the effect of indoor air pollution on children.