The Effects of Ventilation and Filtration on Indoor PM2.5 in Office Buildings in Four Countries

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Build Environ
• Personal Author:
  Jones, Emily R. ; Laurent, Jose Guillermo Cedeño ; Young, Anna S. ; MacNaughton, Piers ; Coull, Brent A. ; Spengler, John D. ; Allen, Joseph G.
• Description:
  Fine particulate matter (PM|) is an airborne pollutant associated with negative acute and chronic human health outcomes. Although the majority of PM| research has focused on outdoor exposures, people spend the majority of their time indoors, where PM| of outdoor origin can penetrate. In this work, we measured indoor PM| continuously for one year in 37 urban commercial offices with mechanical or mixed-mode ventilation in China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We found that indoor PM| concentrations were generally higher when and where outdoor PM| was elevated. In India and China, mean workday indoor PM| levels exceeded the World Health Organization's 24-hour exposure guideline of 25 |g/m| about 17% and 27% of the time, respectively. Our statistical models found evidence that the operation of mechanical ventilation systems could mitigate the intrusion of outdoor PM|: during standard work hours, a 10 |g/m| increase in outdoor PM| was associated with 19.9% increase in the expected concentration of indoor PM| (|<0.0001), compared to a larger 23.4% increase during non-work hours (|<0.0001). Finally, our models found that using filters with ratings of MERV 13-14 or MERV 15+ was associated with a 30.9% (95% CI: -55.0%, +6.2%) or 39.4% (95% CI: -62.0%, -3.4%) reduction of indoor PM|, respectively, compared to filters with lower MERV 7-12 ratings. Our results demonstrate the potential efficacy of mechanical ventilation with efficient filtration as a public health strategy to protect workers from PM| exposure, particularly where outdoor levels of PM| are elevated.
• Keywords:
  Exposure Filtration Office Buildings Particulate Matter Ventilation
• Source:
  Build Environ. 200
• Pubmed ID:
  34366550
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8336933
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  P30 ES000002/ES/NIEHS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; T32 ES007069/ES/NIEHS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; T42 OH008416/OH/NIOSH CDC HHSUnited States/ ; T42OH008416/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  200
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:396d2de1e6c1f005947bb0427d3579112301cffea9c3c6262a065c0347187a07
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/108750/cdc_108750_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 619.84 KB ]