Most people spend most of their time indoors, and the poor quality of the indoor environment is a strong determinant of a variety of health problems. The principal way of preventing adverse health effects is to eliminate exposure to hazardous factors. But first, standardized methods of assessing exposure are necessary to assess the risk to health and to select optimal risk management actions. This book aims to facilitate the implementation of exposure assessment methods in public health practice.

This book presents WHO guidelines for the protection of public health from risks due to a number of chemicals commonly present in indoor air. The substances considered in this review, i.e. benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, naphthalene, nitrogen dioxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (especially benzo[a]pyrene), radon, trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, have indoor sources, are known in respect of their hazardousness to health and are often found indoors in concentrations of health concern. The guidelines are targeted at public health professionals involved in preventing health risks of environmental exposures, as well as specialists and authorities involved in the design and use of buildings, indoor materials and products. They provide a scientific basis for legally enforceable standards.

Discusses pollution from tobacco smoke, radon and radon progeny, asbestos and other fibers, formaldehyde, indoor combustion, aeropathogens and allergens, consumer products, moisture, microwave radiation, ultraviolet radiation, odors, radioactivity, and dirt and discusses means of controlling or eliminating them.

With the recent tightening of air quality standards as mandated by the U.S. EPA, has come great pressure on regulatory bodies at all levels of government, along with the industries and groups affected by these standards, to better assess the hazards and risks that result from air pollutants. Risk Assessment and Indoor Air Quality carefully ties tog

"The combination of scientific and institutional integrity represented by this book is unusual. It should be a model for future endeavors to help quantify environmental risk as a basis for good decisionmaking." â€"William D. Ruckelshaus, from the foreword. This volume, prepared under the auspices of the Health Effects Institute, an independent research organization created and funded jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and the automobile industry, brings together experts on atmospheric exposure and on the biological effects of toxic substances to examine what is knownâ€"and not knownâ€"about the human health risks of automotive emissions.

The monitoring of indoor air pollutants in a spatio-temporal basis is challenging. A key element is the access to local (i.e., indoor residential, workplace, or public building) exposure measurements. Unfortunately, the high cost and complexity of most current air pollutant monitors result in a lack of detailed spatial and temporal resolution. As a result, individuals in vulnerable groups (children, pregnant, elderly, and sick people) have little insight into their personal exposure levels. This becomes significant in cases of hyper-local variations and short-term pollution events such as instant indoor activity (e.g., cooking, smoking, and dust resuspension). Advances in sensor miniaturization have encouraged the development of small, inexpensive devices capable of estimating pollutant concentrations. This new class of sensors presents new possibilities for indoor exposure monitoring. This Special Issue invites research in the areas of the triptych: indoor air pollution monitoring, indoor air modeling, and exposure to indoor air pollution. Topics of interest for the Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following: low-cost sensors for indoor air monitoring; indoor particulate matter and volatile organic compounds; ozone-terpene chemistry; biological agents indoors; source apportionment; exposure assessment; health effects of indoor air pollutants; occupant perception; climate change impacts on indoor air quality.