Indoor air quality and the associated health risk in primary school buildings in Central Europe – The InAirQ study

Szabados, Máté; Csákó, Zsófia; Kotlík, Bohumil; Kazmarová, Helena; Kozajda, Anna; Jutraž, Anja; Kukec, Andreja; Otorepec, Peter; Dongiovanni, Arianna; Maggio, Andrea Di; Fraire, Stefano; Szigeti, Tamás

doi:10.1111/ina.12802

Cited by 36 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Air quality in a primary school classroom is one of the key environmental factors affecting children's health [ 1 , 2 ], their learning outcomes [ 3 ] and behaviour [ 4 , 5 ]. Innovative learning tools and other attractive technologies for indoor activities reduce motivation to be outdoors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne pollen and fungi indoors: Evidence from primary schools in Lithuania

Šaulienė

Valiulis²,

Kerienė³

et al. 2023

Heliyon

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne pollen and fungi indoors: Evidence from primary schools in Lithuania

Šaulienė

Valiulis²,

Kerienė³

et al. 2023

Heliyon

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“…Children are particularly vulnerable to air pollution exposure (Ferguson & Solo‐Gabriele, 2016 ; Kelly & Fussell, 2015 ; Khreis et al., 2017 ; Szabados et al., 2021 ), one of the most important environmental causes of premature death in Europe (European Environmental Agency, 2021 ). They have higher air intake in comparison to adults, leading to higher absorption of pollutants through respiration, besides having immature respiratory and neurological systems (Kim et al., 2004 ; Martins et al., 2020 ; Rice & Barone, 2000 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Barking up the Right Tree: Using Tree Bark to Track Airborne Particles in School Environment and Link Science to Society

et al. 2022

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Children's exposure to air pollution affects both their health and learning skills. Fine and ultrafine particulate matter (PM2.5, PM1), notably issued from traffic sources in urban centers, belong to the most potential harmful health hazards. However their monitoring and the society's awareness on their dangers need to be consolidated. In this study, raising teacher and pupil involvement for air quality improvement in their schools environment is reached through developing a passive monitoring technique (bio‐sensors made of tree bark). The experiment was implemented in two urban elementary schools situated close to a main traffic road of the city of Toulouse (South of France). Magnetic properties, carbonaceous fraction measurements, and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM‐EDX) investigations were realized both on passive bio‐sensors and filters issued from active sampling. We find that traffic is the main PM1 source for both outdoors and indoors at schools. Higher levels of outdoor PM in the school's environments compared to urban background are reached especially in the cold period. The schools proximity to a main traffic source and lack of ventilation are the main causes for observed PM1 accumulation in classrooms. The co‐working experiment with educational teams and pupils shows that the use of bio‐sensors is a driver for children empowerment to air pollution and therefore represents a potential key tool for the teachers though limiting eco‐anxiety. As PM accumulation is observed in many scholar environments across Europe, the proposed methodology is a step toward a better assessment of PM impact on pupil's health and learning skills.

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“…Because of this, buildings' IAQ is always actual topic. Building types of the foremost interest are residential, office and educational buildings [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. It is accepted that school buildings are the most vulnerable considering the healthy environment and the indoor comfort because of the time children spent inside of them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of the building energy efficiency on indoor air temperature: The case of a typical school classroom in Serbia

et al. 2022

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Greenhouse gases emission as well as total energy consumption in buildings of public importance, such as schools, municipal buildings, health care centers, can be significantly reduced by increasing buildings? energy efficiency. Buildings? energy consumption adds up to 37% of total energy consumption in the European Union countries. In the Republic of Serbia this amount is significantly higher, about 50%. School buildings are considered as one of the most diverse structures from the point of energy-efficient design and construction. The main aim of this paper is to determine the most appropriate settings for possible improvements in energy efficiency and temperature comfort inside a typical primary school classroom in Serbia. The energy efficiency analysis was performed during the heating season for the naturally ventilated primary school classroom located in the Eastern Serbia region. The analysis was performed using novel computational fluid dynamics model, suggested in this paper. The suggested model was used to solve two hypothetical scenarios. The first scenario simulates the temperature field in classroom with current energy characteristic envelope of the school building. The calculated numerical data from the first scenario were compared with in-situ measurements values of temperature and wall heat fluxes and showed satisfying accuracy. The second scenario was simulated to indicate possible improvements, which would allow energy consumption decrease and thermal quality enhancement. The analyzed results, calculated using the suggested numerical model under the second scenario conditions, showed that using appropriate set of measures, it is possible to obtain desired temperature comfort levels without need for increase in the building energy consumption.

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Indoor air quality and the associated health risk in primary school buildings in Central Europe – The InAirQ study

Cited by 36 publications

References 19 publications

Airborne pollen and fungi indoors: Evidence from primary schools in Lithuania

Airborne pollen and fungi indoors: Evidence from primary schools in Lithuania

Barking up the Right Tree: Using Tree Bark to Track Airborne Particles in School Environment and Link Science to Society

Influence of the building energy efficiency on indoor air temperature: The case of a typical school classroom in Serbia

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