Why Should Indoor Air Quality be Improved?

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Breathing quality air indoors plays a crucial part in maintaining good health. Most of us spend a major part of the day indoors, either at the home, office, or other places, with chemicals, gases, and other pollutants causing all sorts of health issues. While some pollutants can cause eye irritation, headaches, fatigue, and allergies, others can be more serious and may lead to certain cancers and other similar complications. Keeping indoor air clean can help prevent various environmental health hazards like asthma.

Want more insights into the importance of indoor air quality? Let’s explore a few details here.

Importance Of Improving Indoor Air Quality

  • According to the Environmental Protection Agency, indoor air pollutant levels are 2-5 times more than outdoor pollutant levels. Sometimes, these pollutants can cause 100 times more damage than their outdoor counterparts.
  • On average, a person spends 90% of his life indoors. So, it is essential to improve indoor air quality.
  • Maintaining indoor air quality in workplaces creates an ideal environment to achieve higher productivity levels.
  • Poor air quality can cause coughs, headaches, and eye irritations and may even lead to more serious health concerns in the long run due to continuous exposure to polluted air.
  • Prolonged illnesses due to poor indoor air quality may require individuals to take time off work, resulting in low productivity.

Effects Of Indoor Air Pollution On Health

As maintaining good air quality indoors can help improve health, poor air quality has its repercussions too. Here are some common issues caused by poor indoor air quality.

When the air quality of your indoor spaces is not well-maintained, it immediately leads to headaches, fatigue, and dizziness, among other such symptoms. It may also irritate the eyes, throat, and nose.

As the symptoms are similar to what you experience from colds and viral conditions, make sure that you pay attention to the location and timing of when they start appearing. If these symptoms start fading as soon as you get out of the building, you can be certain that poor air quality is the culprit.

How often you see an instant reaction to poor air quality depends on a few factors. These include your age and if you are carrying any medical conditions already.

Besides these short-term side effects of poor air quality, there can be some long-term effects. When you have prolonged exposure to poor quality air, it can result in respiratory issues, heart disease, and even cancer. Sometimes, these issues can also turn out to be fatal.

It is hard to pinpoint a specific period of exposure or concentration of poor quality air that may lead to health issues. The probability of serious health effects from such exposure varies from one person to another. So, as a general rule, you need to improve air quality and should take the necessary steps to make it happen. It will be quite helpful for you in the long run.