An approach for the assessment of indoor air pollution

Humans spend most of their time in buildings which are basically produced to offer a healthy life to their users. One of the properties of buildings, which may cause a wide range of health and related economic problems, is indoor air pollution. Due to minimization or prevention of this negativity, it is necessary to evaluate the existing indoor air pollution in terms of user health through an accurately constituted building – human health relationship and to produce conclusions which consist of negativity and risk levels of the situation caused by pollution in buildings. Although, there are some approaches or methods, produced by various researchers or organizations, in scientific literature; the lack of a systematic and comprehensive approach, which can be utilized for the stated purpose, has been accentuated by many significant scientific bodies. The aim of this research is to generate an assessment approach which can provide necessary information for studies targeting to minimize or prevent the pollution for situations where users may be affected adversely by existing indoor air pollution in buildings. The subject is being considered as an important issue in terms of human health and the production and perpetuation of healthy indoor environments. Research stands on considerations such as: the subject can be handled within the framework of pollutants – microenvironment – user context and the existing methods and approaches in the scientific literature can be utilized for generation of desired approach. Through this approach, formed with the stated aim, it is hypothesized that, the negativity level and risks on user health can be determined for the indoor air pollution and the problems causing this negativity can be identified accurately. Indoor air pollution occurs due to indoor air pollutants, which originate from the outdoor environment of building, building products or users and accumulate in closed spaces of buildings. Pollutants can carry a wide range of different physical, chemical or biological properties and can cause basically, cancers, non-cancer diseases and sick building syndrome. Exposure of users to indoor air pollutants starts with the access of indoor air pollutants to human body and occurs mostly by inhalation or dermal absorbance in a much less probability. The level of negativity and the features of the problems are mostly associated with the duration of the contact, various properties of the pollutants and especially, with the biological features, activities based on sociological properties and the sensitivity of humans. Closed spaces of the building, which bring humans and pollutants together, become exposure environments for humans. This union is affected by the properties of the building. Especially, the types and concentrations of pollutants are affected by the air-related-properties of the space envelopes. The natural or forced air movements in and around the spaces, the interactivity of the surfaces of the spaces and the properties such as temperature, humidity etc. may have significant effects on the exposure. The recent and contemporary focus about exposure is on the target, in other words on the user. Current approaches mostly and primarily start with determination the situation in which the human is affected. From this point of view, in scientific researches, it is seen that, several methods are being used to determine the qualitative and quantitative properties of the pollutants, the exposure duration and frequency and susceptibility of the users. Types of pollutants, present in the closed spaces of buildings, are determined by researching the pollutant resources, the health situation and biomarkers of exposed humans; the concentrations are determined through several measurement, calculation or simulation methods and exposure duration and frequency are acquired by using microenvironment – time – activity researches. The assessment of these data is mostly executed by comparing the concentrations with limit values and within the scope of these assessments, cancer and non – cancer risks can be calculated. To eliminate the shortage in the scientific literature aimed at the assessment of indoor air pollution in terms of human health, a comprehensive assessment approach is generated. This approach, necessitating an inter-disciplinary study, starts with the identification of the building and continues with a comprehensive pre-investigation stage. After the pre-investigation stage, the data is evaluated and determination decisions are being formed. Determination stage is executed according to these decisions. Data gathered in the determination stage is being evaluated in terms of microenvironment – pollutant – user properties and the levels of negativity and risks are being established in the assessment stage. It is believed that, this approach differs from similar ones due to handling the subject in the framework of microenvironment – pollutant – user properties, enabling the execution of determination activities in convenient circumstances through determination decisions which are generated with data acquired in the end of pre-investigation stage, constituting a directive and systematic series of determination, evaluation and decision producing steps, being open to progress and due to being able to provide different pollutant – microenvironment – user suggestions for the elimination of the stated indoor air pollution problems. The pre-investigation stage of the approach is tested in an architectural office in İstanbul and pollutant – user determinations are executed.