Indoor Air Quality and Microbial Exposure

Most people spend the majority of their lives indoors, yet the air inside homes, offices, and schools can carry a complex mixture of biological and chemical agents—ranging from mold spores and bacterial aerosols to formaldehyde off-gassed from building materials—that the body encounters at low but persistent doses. Researchers in this area work to characterize those exposures, trace their sources, and establish how ventilation rates and building design either concentrate or dilute contaminants that have been linked to asthma, allergic disease, and the cluster of nonspecific symptoms known as sick building syndrome. A central challenge is that indoor environments are highly variable, so identifying which specific agents—or combinations of agents—drive health outcomes remains difficult and contested. Active work is now focused on improving real-world exposure measurement, understanding how microbial communities shift with building conditions, and setting evidence-based thresholds for compounds like formaldehyde where regulatory guidance has lagged behind the science.

Works

51,950

Total citations

631,311

Keywords

Indoor Air QualityAirborne MicroorganismsVolatile Organic CompoundsHealth EffectsMold ExposureVentilation Rates