Indoor Air Quality Components

Indoor air quality is an important component to keep employees healthy and productive.  Symptoms of deficient air quality can present in many different ways such as fatigue, headaches, difficulty focusing, and soreness of the nose, lungs, throat, and eyes.  These symptoms can be early warning signs for problems that lead to longer lasting health issues.  For instance, asthma has been linked to damp indoor environments.  Other environments with radon or asbestos may not show immediate symptoms, yet have permanent and very series health implications. Poor indoor air quality can be compounded by poor ventilation from inadequate outside air, the inability to properly control internal building temperatures, recent renovations, and too low or high of humidity.  Specifically for indoor renovations, dust from the work can permeate through the building’s ventilation system.  This is also true for mold spores, fumes from harsh cleaning supplies, and other airborne pesticides.  The ventilation system becomes a delivery system, by which the entire building is affected.  Every floor and office can then be susceptible to endangering the employees by the spread of airborne pathogens. Often a proper ventilation system and frequent testing can mitigate these issues in office buildings.  OSHA does not have specific indoor air quality standards, but this area falls under the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act; which mandates employers to have a safe working environment, free from any known hazards that are likely to instigate injury or death.  However, OSHA does have very specific standards for ventilation systems and air contaminants that are involved in indoor air quality.  Special equipment can be used to test and analyze indoor air quality and quickly identify and issues or deficiencies.  Please click hereto find a local Certified Industrial Hygienist to have your building tested.Indoor air quality is a catalyst for airborne pathogens and should be taken seriously within every office environment.  A Certified Industrial Hygienist is trained to look through buildings, new and old, for problem areas and quickly identify solutions.  Proper monitoring and testing will ensure compliance with OSHA standards, avoiding costly fines.   Any frequent complaints of headache or difficulty concentrating may be a sign of poor indoor air quality and patterns of complaints should be carefully scrutinized and documented to determine if there may be an underlying cause.  If a cause is discovered, the Certified Industrial Hygienist will need to monitor the building closely to ensure the problem has been fixed and follow up through scheduled visits to ensure the problem has not recurred.