Children spend most of their time indoors, where hazardous chemicals in building and construction materials, furniture, tobacco smoking, and household cleaning and other products can pollute the air they breathe. Even when concentrations of single chemicals are below guidance values, combined exposure to hazardous chemicals can generate risks for health. These risks are higher for children and need to be addressed.
To protect children’s health, WHO/Europe has developed a toolbox that includes:
- a questionnaire for the selection of sampling sites and an overview of methods for sample analysis;
- Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) RiskCalculator, software that calculates the risk for selected health effects and 17 chemicals of concern that are common in children’s settings; and
- a selection of measures to reduce and minimize health risks. Some of these measures do not require legislative decisions or additional financial resources and can be taken at all levels (from national to local) with the involvement of relevant stakeholders.
Public health professionals and other specialists responsible for creating healthy indoor environments for children can use these tools for selecting sampling sites, estimating and assessing the health risk for children and identifying the most effective measures for risk reduction. Both the software and the publications are available in English and in Russian.
Raising awareness
The toolbox also includes an educational course to raise awareness among specialists responsible for promoting children’s health and to trigger action to ensure healthy indoor environments for children. Public health and health-care professionals, medical and nursing students, and decision-makers, as well as non-health specialists working in public settings for children (e.g., administrative and building managers, teachers and educators) can learn how to assess, communicate and reduce children’s health risks from indoor air pollution.