Indoor air pollution: a public health perspective

Our plain-English summary of Indoor air pollution: a public health perspective, by J.D. Spengler, K. Sexton (Science, 1983).

The study

• Authors: J.D. Spengler, K. Sexton
• Journal: Science
• Published: 1983;221(4605):9-17
• Cited by: 244 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004638).

Abstract

Although official efforts to control air pollution have traditionally focused on outdoor air, it is now apparent that elevated contaminant concentrations are common inside some private and public buildings. Concerns about potential public health problems due to indoor air pollution are based on evidence that urban residents typically spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors, concentrations of some contaminants are higher indoors than outdoors, and for some pollutants personal exposures are not characterized adequately by outdoor measurements. Among the more important indoor contaminants associated with health or irritation effects are passive tobacco smoke, radon decay products, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, asbestos fibers, microorganisms, and aeroallergens. Efforts to assess health risks associated with indoor air pollution are limited by insufficient information about the number of people exposed, the pattern and severity of exposures, and the health consequences of exposures. An overall strategy should be developed to investigate indoor exposures, health effects, control options, and public policy alternatives.

In plain English

This 1983 article was a review rather than an original study. The authors surveyed published reports on air pollution inside nonoccupational buildings such as homes, schools and offices. The pollutants covered included tobacco smoke, radon, formaldehyde, combustion by-products and asbestos fibers. They noted asbestos use in ceiling and floor tiles, pipe insulation, spackling compounds, concrete and insulating materials. Citing other studies, they reported airborne fiber levels ranging from zero during normal activities outdoors and in schools, offices and dormitories to more than 100 fibers per milliliter during disruptive contact maintenance to ceilings. They wrote that risks to the general public were unknown because exposure-effect data came only from occupational settings. Unless the material was extremely friable, which they said was rare, they expected exposures to be episodic and hard to capture by random monitoring. Noting that few measurements of air concentrations were available, the authors concluded that houses, schools and office buildings can become contaminated. In their view, the possible synergism with cigarette smoke, together with the severity of the potential health consequences, justified steps to limit asbestos exposure.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Review and public health perspective article summarizing published reports on indoor air pollutants; no new data collected
• Who was studied: No study population. The article reviewed literature on indoor air in nonoccupational settings (homes, schools, offices, public buildings, mobile homes), mainly in the United States.
• Exposure: Indoor pollutants in general, including asbestos fibers released from asbestos-containing products in buildings. No specific fiber type is named.
• Main results:
  • Citing other studies: airborne fiber concentrations measured by NIOSH standard methods ranged from zero during normal activities outdoors and in schools, offices and dormitories to more than 100 fibers per milliliter during disrupting contact maintenance to ceilings.
  • Citing other studies: electron microscopic examination of air samples gave values from nearly zero outdoors in many U.S. cities to about 2000 ng/m3 in a New Jersey school during custodial activities.
  • The authors wrote that, although few measurements were available, houses, schools and office buildings can become contaminated.
  • Citing other studies: increases in lung cancers, pleural and peritoneal mesotheliomas, and gastrointestinal tract cancers had been linked to occupational asbestos exposures.
  • The authors reported that 85 percent or more of the asbestos in use was immobilized in strong binding material, which can release fibers if disrupted.
  • Standards described in the article: an OSHA standard of 2 fibers per milliliter and a recommended NIOSH limit of 0.1 fiber per milliliter.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the possible synergism of asbestos with other contaminants, particularly cigarette smoke, and the severity of the potential health consequences justified steps to limit exposure to asbestos.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Few measurements of indoor asbestos air concentrations were available.
  • Risks to the general public were unknown because exposure-effect data existed only for occupational settings.
  • Unless the material was extremely friable, which the authors said was rare, indoor asbestos exposures were likely to be episodic and therefore difficult to evaluate by random monitoring.
  • The authors described the available information on indoor air pollution as fragmented, anecdotal and often contradictory.

Related studies

• Health effects of indoor pollutants — M.D. Lebowitz (1983)
• Indoor air pollutants. A literature review — T.F. Cooke (1991)
• Risk of human health by particulate matter as a source of air pollution--comparison with tobacco smoking — M. Enomoto, W.J. Tierney, et al. (2008)
• Carcinogenic industrial air pollution and postmenopausal breast cancer risk in the National Institutes of Health AARP Diet and Health Study — J.M. Madrigal, C.N. Pruitt, et al. (2024)
• A pilot study of indoor air quality in screen golf courses — S.J. Goung, J. Yang, et al. (2015)
• The role of threshold limit values in U.S. air pollution policy — J.C. Robinson, D.G. Paxman (1992)

Browse more research in Science, or return to medical research.