Handbook of Occupational Safety and Health, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 8INDOOR AIR QUALITY IN NONINDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

PHILIP R. MOREY^† and RICHARD SHAUGHNESSY

Department of Chemical Engineering, Director Indoor Air Research, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, 74104

8.1 INTRODUCTION

Indoor air quality (IAQ) in nonindustrial occupational environments is not a new subject or field of study; however it carries a degree of added complexity to that of an industrial setting due to the diverse building structures that are encompassed and the broad spectrum of the population that inhabit the buildings. The approach to understanding and addressing efforts to improve IAQ in the nonindustrial setting often requires a multidisciplinary approach that involves numerous professions and expertise. The backgrounds that comprise an IAQ team investigating problems in a building may draw from medical, engineering, building science, architecture, risk communication, microbiology, psychology, indoor environmental professionals, industrial hygiene, and more. It is this principle that one must consider to effectively attend to IAQ‐related problems in buildings. This chapter tracks that approach by focusing upon a logical progression of the key ingredients of an IAQ problem (sources, pathways, and people). We begin with a basic premise of the sources of pollutants in the structure, the pathways through which the pollutants move (planned and unplanned airflows), and the nature of the problem itself in terms of how it is manifested and voiced by occupants, ...