Open Journal of Pediatrics, June 2012
Are children safe indoor from outdoor air pollution? A short review
Giovanni Ghirga*, Mara Pipere
International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE) Alto Lazio, Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy
Email: gi8589pa@virgilio.it
Background: Air pollution is a serious threat to chil- dren health. Given that children spend over 80% of their time indoors, understanding transport of pollutants from outdoor to indoor environments is im- portant for assessing the impact of exposure to out- door pollution on children health. The most common advice given during a smoke pollution episode is to stay indoors. How well this works depends on how clean the indoor air is and how pollutants from out- door air contribute to pollutants load in indoor air.
Objective: To assess the amount of outdoor air pollution coming indoors threatening children health.
Methods: A Medline/EMBASE search of scientific articles was performed to evaluate the indoor-to- outdoor (I/O) concentration ratios of two main pol- lutants: ultrafine particles (UFP) and ozone (O3).
Result: Under infiltration condition, the highest I/O ra-tios (0.6 – 0.9) were usually observed for larger UFP (70 – 100 nm), while the lowest I/O ratios (0.1 – 0.4) occurred typically around 10 – 20 nm. O3 I/O ratios vary according to air exchange and may be 0.6 – 0.8 for interiors having a large volume exchange with outdoor air (i.e. open windows) and 0.3 – 0.4 with conventional air conditioning systems.
Conclusions: In the absence of indoor sources or activities, indoor UFP particles originate from outdoors. O3 concentration indoors may reach concentration similar to outdoors. Environmental and energy policies must also explicitly account for all the impacts of fossil fuel combustion on child health and development.
