A nonprofit organization has announced that they will be studying the effects of outdoor pollution on Indoor Air Quality. Read more below about the organization and their plan!
Illinois Institute of Technology and Elevate Energy, a nonprofit organization that studies and devleops energy efficiency programs, announced they are teaming up to study the impact of outdoor pollution and weatherization on IAQ and chronic health issues in U.S. facilities and homes.
“We want to determine how outdoor pollution can get indoors and affect the air you’re breathing every day,” said Brent Stephens, assistant professor of architectural engineering at Illinois Tech. “We hope the results of this study will not only improve the public’s ability to protect the environment and human health, but also improve energy efficiency and IAQ of buildings.”
Illinois Tech and Elevate Energy are recruiting 30 homes and facilities from Chicago and surrounding suburbs to participate in the study to assess the air quality of a dwelling before and after weatherization retrofits are applied. A set of nationally representative IAQ models will be used to predict long-term concentrations and health risks. The field measurements will be conducted by the Built Environment Research Group at Illinois Tech and include ventilation rates, infiltration factors, indoor deposition rates, and envelope penetration factors for a number of priority pollutants.
This article originally posted to ACHRnews.com.
