Title: Indoor Environmental Quality Fact Sheet
Sub-Title: IEQ Facts from NIOSH
Date of publication: 1997
URL: www.cdc.gov/niosh/ieqfs.html
Authors: NIOSH
Bibliographic info: On-line fact sheet (in *.html) about the nature, importance and effects of indoor environmental quality.
Publisher: NIOSH
Abstract: Scientists at the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have completed over 1300 evaluations related to the indoor office environment since the late 1970’s, and the number of these requests as a percentage of the total has risen dramatically. In 1980, requests to evaluate office environments made up only 8% of the total requests for NIOSH investigations. In 1990, the Institute received 150 IEQ requests, which accounted for 38% of the total. Since 1990, IEQ requests have made up 52% of all requests.

The symptoms reported to NIOSH include headaches, unusual fatigue, varying degrees of itching or burning eyes, skin irritation, nasal congestion, dry or irritated throats, and nausea. IEQ problems discovered have been caused by ventilation system deficiencies, overcrowding, offgassing from materials in the office and mechanical equipment, tobacco smoke, microbiological contamination, and outside air pollutants. NIOSH has also found comfort problems due to improper temperature and relative humidity conditions, poor lighting, and unacceptable noise levels, as well as adverse ergonomic conditions, and job-related psychosocial stressors.
Additional Notes: This site is a good starting point for schools that are forming an indoor air quality response protocol. There are also additional subtopics and downloadable references at the NIOSH indoor air quality page that may be useful.
Keywords: IAQ, IEQ, ventilation, offgassing, overcrowding, tobacco, microbiological, air pollutants, temperature, relative humidity, lighting, noise, ergonomics, psychosocial stressors, procedure, investigation
Record Last Revised: Record #103, revised 1/23/2001


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