Chemical, Microbiological, Health and Comfort Aspects of Indoor Air Quality - State of the Art in SBS

Based on the Lectures given during the Eurocourse on 'Chemical, Microbiological, Health and Comfort Aspects of Indoor Air Quality -- State of the Art in SBS' held at the Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy, 23--27 March, 1992

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Interest in indoor air quality (IAQ) is growing at public, political and scientific levels. Complaints about poor IAQ, associated with acute symptoms such as mucous irritation, headaches and bad odor occur frequently, particularly in the office environment, where typical patterns of symptoms often occur, leading to the coining of the term `Sick Building Syndrome'.
In the present book, internationally known experts address the following issues:

the dynamics of the indoor environment and strategies for indoor measurement
chemical and microbiological pollution, important species, sources and detection methods
effects of indoor pollution, in particular
sensory irritation, including odor
airway, eye and skin irritation by organic indoor pollutants and their assessment
immune effects, including allergic sensitization
chemical hyper-responsiveness
controlled human reactions to organic pollutants
building investigation: approaches and results
source characterization and control
criteria, norms and techniques in indoor air pollution, and regulatory aspects.

The complex, multifactorial nature of sick building syndrome requires multidisciplinary collaboration from very diverse fields. It is evident that communication between researchers coming from very different areas, all speaking their own language, is a difficult task. This book, presenting as it does the state of the art on sick buildings and how to cure them, is a sound foundation on which to build for the future.