No abstract

In order to examine the associations between different indoor environmental quality (IEQ) indicators and students' performance, absenteeism and health in Southwestern United States, sampling and monitoring were performed in a 70 school district during two academic years.These included measurements of temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), and settled dust. A standardized cleaning protocol was employed for surface sampling and cleaning effectiveness evaluation utilizing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitoring systems to detect biological contamination, and contact agar (RODAC) plates to detect culturable bacteria.In addition, student data related to socioeconomic background, absenteeism, performance, and number of visits to school nurse was retrieved anonymously from the school district. Significant associations were observed between percentages of students scoring satisfactory in mathematics and reading tests and both indoor T (r = -.353 and r = -.311 respectively) and ventilation rate (r = .417 and r = .479 respectively), which was estimated based on CO 2 levels. In addition, ventilation rate was associated with mean number of visits to school nurse due to respiratory symptoms, and culturable bacteria with mean number of visits due to gastrointestinal symptoms; but there were no significant correlations between absenteeism and IEQ parameters in these school-level analyses. In conclusion, classroom ventilation rate, temperature, and hygiene of high contact surfaces appear to be important IEQ parameters, potentially related to student health and/or performance.

Objective: To study indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in elementary school buildings and its association with students' learning outcomes. Conclusion: Ventilation is associated with thermal comfort and students' learning outcomes.The ventilation system requires scheduled maintenance or replacement as well as ongoing ventilation adjustment to accommodate the number of students at any one time.

Background: The aim of this paper was to examine associations between school building characteristics, indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and health responses using questionnaire data from both school principals and students. Methods: From 334 randomly sampled schools, 4248 sixth grade students from 297 schools participated in a questionnaire. From these schools, 134 principals returned questionnaires concerning 51 IEQ related questions of their school. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) were used to study the associations between IEQ indicators and existence of self-reported upper respiratory symptoms, while hierarchical Zero Inflated Poisson (ZIP)—models were used to model the number of symptoms. Results: Significant associations were established between existence of upper respiratory symptoms and unsatisfactory classroom temperature during the heating season (ORs 1.45 for too hot and cold, and 1.27 for too cold as compared to satisfactory temperature) and dampness or moisture damage during the year 2006–2007 (OR: 1.80 as compared to no moisture damage), respectively. The number of upper respiratory symptoms was significantly associated with inadequate ventilation and dampness or moisture damage. A higher number of missed school days due to respiratory infections were reported in schools with inadequate ventilation (RR: 1.16). Conclusions: The school level IEQ indicator variables described in this paper could explain a relatively large part of the school level variation observed in the self-reported upper respiratory symptoms and missed school days due to respiratory infections among students.