Gigantic plumes of smoke from the Canadian wildfires that blanketed the northeastern United States this month provided a striking reminder of the dangers that toxic air can pose — not just in the atmosphere, but also indoors. As New York City dealt with the worst air quality in the world, millions of people scrambled to eliminate the potentially dangerous particles that had seeped into their homes.
As Yahoo News reports, experts say it shouldn’t take such an unprecedented event for indoor air quality to be a key focus of health efforts. Scientists have known for many years that clean indoor air can reduce heart and lung disease, improve cognitive performance in adults and children, and prevent a long list of deadly pathogens from spreading. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that household air pollution is responsible for 3.2 million deaths per year globally. There’s even a phenomenon known as sick building syndrome that’s been documented to reduce productivity and increase absences in schools and workplaces.
Americans spend roughly 90% of their time inside, but neither the public nor government health authorities have given indoor air quality the kind of attention provided to clean water, food safety and outdoor air pollution. That has started to change since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which provided undeniable evidence of the life-and-death difference things like air circulation and purification can make.
Late last year, the Biden administration held a summit on indoor air quality, bringing together experts in health, ventilation, business and education to discuss ways to improve indoor air quality to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Then in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the first federal recommendations for how often air in a room should be circulated to stem the spread of disease — five times an hour.
Why there’s debate
According to Yahoo News, medical experts are hoping that the awareness created by the combined effects of the pandemic and increasingly frequent wildfires will help lead to an indoor air revolution in the same way diseases like cholera made clean drinking water an imperative for cities around the world nearly two centuries ago. As one epidemiologist elegantly put it: “Air is the new poop.”
But many clean air advocates say there is still a long way to go before there’s enough urgency to create the society-wide change they believe is necessary. They argue that only businesses and governments have the scope to effectively address a problem whose burden is usually placed on individual people.
At a small scale, improving indoor air can be as easy as opening a window. But the technologies needed to make a wider impact — including updated HVAC systems, air purifiers and disinfecting ultraviolet light — will be expensive to implement. A number of experts argue that the effort will ultimately save businesses and governments money by reducing health care spending and increasing productivity.
What’s next
Some scientists make the case for new laws to require better indoor air management. Others argue that the change will come only through a coordinated public pressure campaign that forces schools, businesses and lawmakers to make indoor air safety a core focus for public health.
With climate change leading to more wildfires and increased awareness of airborne viruses, the issue isn’t going away.
—
Photo Credit: 120alpa.ca / Shutterstock.com