Our mission and objectives
The Indoor Air Quality Working party is a group of leading clean air health and built environment researchers.
We work collaboratively to advance public understanding, equality of access and experience of healthier indoor air for children and other vulnerable groups within the wider population.
Our objectives are:
- To synthesise and make recommendations from evidence-based research of indoor air quality and its health effects on children and other vulnerable groups within the wider population
- To give robust evidence a narrative, a story, a relevance in everyday life.
- To inform and educate those in a position to take action for healthier indoor air.
Who we are
Current members of the working party and secretariat
- Professor Stephen Holgate, Co-Chair, MRC Clinical Professor, University of Southampton and UKRI Clean Air Champion
- Professor Jonathan Grigg, Co-Chair, Professor of Paediatric Respiratory and Environmental Medicine, Queen Mary University of London
- Ms Briony Turner Secretariat, University of Reading
- Dr Catherine O’Leary Secretariat, University of York
- Professor Hasan Arshad, Professor of allergy and clinical Immunol, University of Southampton
- Professor Janet Barlow, Professor of Environmental Physics, University of Reading
- Dr Nicola Carslaw, Professor in Air Pollution, University of York
- Professor Paul Cullinan, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Respiratory Disease, Imperial College London
- Professor Anne Greenough,Professor of Neonatology and Clinical Respiratory Physiology, King’s College London
- Dr Mike Holland, Ecometrics Research and Consulting, Reading
- Dr Benjamin Jones, Assistant Professor, Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham
- Professor Paul Linden, Professor of Fluid Mechanics, Dept of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. Projects of relevance: MAGIC and TAPAS
- Professor Tim Sharpe, Professor of Architecture, University of Strathclyde
- Professor Alan Short, Professor of Architecture, University of Cambridge
- Dr Marcella Ucci, Associate Professor in Environmental and Healthy Buildings, UCL
- Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis, Professor of Global Environmental Health, Australian National University
Past members
- Dr Sani Dimitroulopoulou, Senior Environmental Scientist, Public Health England – member until July 2020
- the late Professor Alexander Henderson , Professor of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, University of Bristol, member until July 2019
Our history
Many of our members initially came together when the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), established in June 2018 an Indoor Air Quality Working Group to bring together experts from a range of specialities from a number of universities in the UK to investigate the evidence around indoor air quality and to propose steps to protect the health of children.
Our findings were published in a report by the RCPCH and RCP in January 2020 in a document called The Inside Story: Health effects of indoor air quality on children and young people. We found that improving indoor air quality helps to promote good respiratory health and can reduce the risk of respiratory infections. The report includes a comprehensive set of recommendations for Government, local authorities, health practitioners and their professional bodies as well as guidance for families.
Following the publication of that report, all the working party members who had authored the report decided to regroup and continue to work together to make the findings of the scientific review accessible to children, parents, built environment and health practitioners. We’ve since added to our membership and some members have stepped down due to other work commitments. A full list of members is set out above.
The secretariat for the Indoor Air Quality Working Party is hosted by the University of Reading, which acts as the accountable body for the Working Party.