A ventilation intervention study in classrooms to improve indoor air quality: the FRESH study

Environmental Health

Research

Machiel Vonk¹  Frans Duijm¹  Jan T van Ginkel²  Ulrike Gehring³  Jeannette TM Rosbach⁴  Bert Brunekreef⁵ 

[1] Department of Environmental Health, Municipal Health Services Groningen, P.O. Box 584, 9700, Groningen, AN, The Netherlands;Department of Environmental Health, Municipal Health Services IJsselland, P.O. Box 1453, 8001, BL, Zwolle, The Netherlands;Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, .O. Box 80178, 3508, TD, Utrecht, The Netherlands;Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, .O. Box 80178, 3508, TD, Utrecht, The Netherlands;Department of Environmental Health, Municipal Health Services Groningen, P.O. Box 584, 9700, Groningen, AN, The Netherlands;Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, .O. Box 80178, 3508, TD, Utrecht, The Netherlands;Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, P.O. Box 85500, 3508, Utrecht, GA, The Netherlands;

关键词: Ventilation;    Schools;    Carbon dioxide;    Indoor air quality;    Intervention;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-12-110

 received in 2013-09-02, accepted in 2013-12-12,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundClassroom ventilation rates often do not meet building standards, although it is considered to be important to improve indoor air quality. Poor indoor air quality is thought to influence both children’s health and performance. Poor ventilation in The Netherlands most often occurs in the heating season. To improve classroom ventilation a tailor made mechanical ventilation device was developed to improve outdoor air supply. This paper studies the effect of this intervention.MethodsThe FRESH study (Forced-ventilation Related Environmental School Health) was designed to investigate the effect of a CO2 controlled mechanical ventilation intervention on classroom CO2 levels using a longitudinal cross-over design. Target CO2 concentrations were 800 and 1200 parts per million (ppm), respectively. The study included 18 classrooms from 17 schools from the north-eastern part of The Netherlands, 12 experimental classrooms and 6 control classrooms. Data on indoor levels of CO2, temperature and relative humidity were collected during three consecutive weeks per school during the heating seasons of 2010–2012. Associations between the intervention and weekly average indoor CO2 levels, classroom temperature and relative humidity were assessed by means of mixed models with random school-effects.ResultsAt baseline, mean CO2 concentration for all schools was 1335 ppm (range: 763–2000 ppm). The intervention was able to significantly decrease CO2 levels in the intervention classrooms (F (2,10) = 17.59, p < 0.001), with a mean decrease of 491 ppm. With the target set at 800 ppm, mean CO2 was 841 ppm (range: 743–925 ppm); with the target set at 1200 ppm, mean CO2 was 975 ppm (range: 887–1077 ppm).ConclusionsAlthough the device was not capable of precisely achieving the two predefined levels of CO2, our study showed that classroom CO2 levels can be reduced by intervening on classroom ventilation using a CO2 controlled mechanical ventilation system.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Rosbach et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.