Indoor air quality is important because we spend a great deal of time inside our home, school, or in the office. Research found that Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors. Another research found that indoor air quality is worst than outdoors. These findings are enough for us to stop and take the time to improve our indoor air quality.

Poor indoor air quality can cause health problems like allergies and asthma. Prolonged exposure to poor air quality can also cause serious health problems like lung disease, heart disease, and cancer. The kind of illness you are likely to develop depends on the pollutants present in the air that you breathe.

Here are some ways on how you can improve air quality in your home, office, and school:

• Avoid smoking inside the house or quit smoking altogether. Tobacco smoke contains chemicals that are harmful to both the smoker and non-smokers who breathe in secondhand smoke.
• Use natural household products. Household products contain chemicals that exude harmful gases even when stored away. These chemicals can get mixed in the air you breathe. So, make sure you properly dispose your old and un-used household products (e.g. air fresheners, cleaning solutions, solvents, paints, etc.) to avoid contamination.
• Clean your vents. As ventilation machines improve indoor air quality, particles get caught in them and add up if you do not regularly clean them. Any disturbance to a dirty vent can cause the particles to get mixed in the air.
• Change filters on central cooling systems. Like vents, filters get dirty over time from all the filtering. Make sure you regularly clean the filters or change them to improve air quality.
• Increase indoor ventilation. Furniture, appliances, and other building materials may contain radon, formaldehyde, lead paint, asbestos and many more. Improving indoor ventilation can lessen your exposure to such harmful chemicals.
• Test your indoor air quality. One way to determine contaminants is by doing an indoor air quality test. The test will give you an idea on what contaminants are present in your indoor air and its levels.

Source:

http://www.volunteerguide.org/hours/service-projects/indoor-air-quality

http://www.faqs.org/health/Healthy-Living-V1/Environmental-Health-Indoor-air-pollution.html

Posted under Health & Wellness
Tags: improve air quality, improve indoor air quality, indoor air quality, poor air quality exposure.