The Influence of Contaminants in Ambient Air on the Indoor Air Quality Part 1: Exposure of Children

Abstract

It is the ambition of the Regional Government in Flanders, Belgium and in particular of the Environment and Health Unit (Ministry of Environment) to deploy a policy that includes all issues related to Environment and Health. This includes the development of a policy to reduce population exposure also in indoor environments.In a previous study entitled "Development of a Flemish Policy for the Indoor Environment" (Goelen et al. 2003b), one of the identified future work items was to actually gather information about indoor pollution levels in Flanders, infiltration from outdoor to indoor environments and related population exposure in various microenvironments.In this context, the main aim of this study is: "to determine for sensitive groups of children the indoor environment exposure as a result of contaminants that occur in outdoor and indoor air". Derived from this purpose, it is required to investigate:- the indoor exposure for a first set of priority contaminants;- the proportion of these contaminants infiltrating from outdoor to indoor.Work package 1 of the project is summarised in this report. It is intended to determine the scope and outline of the study in consensus with the steering committee, after review of the report by a selection of international experts.Besides the overall strategy to determine indoor exposure and indoor - outdoor pollution levels in relevant micro environments, this report will consider in particular the selection of:- subgroups (0-18 years);- indoor environments;- outdoor/indoor pollutants and measurement methods/locations.These considerations will answer the questions: who, where, what and how to measure.Once the outline of the study (WP1) is determined, the 24 months project will continue with:- the actual measurements and field work (WP 2);- the interpretation of the results with recommendations for the governme (WP3).It is scheduled to finish WP1 by July-August 2005.The external communication of the overall project is done by means of a (limited)website and a workshop. The proposed acronym for the project is "FLIES": Flanders Indoor Exposure Survey.