Schools' indoor air associated with childhood asthma: evidence from a multipollutant approach

Abstract

Poor indoor air quality in schools has been reported and related to children's respiratory health, but studies are usually limited to single pollutant models. Thus, this work intended to quantify the associations between children's exposure to indoor air pollution (IAP) and childhood asthma in schools by using a multipollutant modelling approach. This study included 1530 children attending 17 nursery and primary schools in Portugal. Multivariate models quantified the associations between children's exposure to IAP and: reported active wheezing, reported and diagnosed asthma, and lung function. This study found no evidence of a significant association between IAP in schools and the prevalence of childhood asthma. However, reported active wheezing was associated with higher NO2, and reduced FEV1 was associated with higher O3 and PM2.5, despite NO2 and O3 were always below the thresholds. (c) 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.