Exploiting our broader building systems to assess the success of our air quality interventions
External air pollutants readily infiltrate buildings and are estimated to claim the lives of 8.34 million people globally each year. This represents a million more deaths than the entire COVID-19 pandemic has caused to date.
Contaminant reservoirs, whether temporary or permanent, represent locations where indoor air quality pollutants accumulate under the right conditions. Understanding these reservoirs is crucial for identifying pollutants of concern that occupants may be exposed to daily, offering a historical perspective that transient air samples cannot provide.
By adopting a comprehensive approach that considers the environment, building, and occupants as an integrated system, we can delineate the flow of relevant pollutants and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. This presentation will explore various sampling approaches within the framework of the environment-building-occupant concept, highlighting emerging tools to assess building performance. It will examine methods ranging from analysing settled dust and air filters to testing tap water and wastewater. We will explore whether we can gain better insights by working with more diverse matrices to evaluate the performance of our indoor air quality interventions.
About Claire
Claire is a scientist with 25 years of experience in laboratory management, training, consulting, and advocacy, and also the owner of building health and microbial analysis business LITMAS. She focuses on creating a safer and more sustainable future that we can tangibly see and feel.
In 2004, Claire completed her doctoral degree, specialising in environmental microbial detection and characterisation. This paved the way for Australia to co-establish the prestigious Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory at Flinders University. Claire was the inaugural President of IAQA Australia and currently serves as Secretary of the international Integrated Biosciences and Built Environment Consortium and Associate Director of the AIRAH Indoor Air Quality Special Technical Group.
About Belinda
Belinda is the founding Laboratory Manager at LITMAS, based on study and several years of prior experience as a research officer in university laboratories in molecular biology and environmental biotechnology. She focuses on establishing methods and systems for the identification and recording of microorganisms, including mould and its co-contaminants across many thousands of air and surface samples.
Graduating in the top 2 per cent with distinction at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Belinda completed a Bachelor of Applied Science with a dual focus on biotechnology and biology.
Belinda is an active member of AIRAH’s Indoor Air Quality Special Technical Group.