On a federal level, very few regulations exist in the United States that are related to indoor air quality. Individual states, however, have been very active in regulating indoor environmental contaminants. In fact, there are so many state regulations, it can be menacing to keep them all straight.

This month’s featured website is a detailed listing of all state IAQ regulations from the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). Lists of any regulations become outdated quickly, so you’ll be happy to note that ELI updated their database earlier this year. (more…)

I recently had a client ask, “Are these levels of mold that you found causing my symptoms?”  It may seem like an innocuous question, but it proves to be quite tricky to answer.  It puts you in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.  Let me explain.

If you do provide an answer, either affirmative or negative, you are taking on the role of a licensed health care provider.

If you don’t provide any answer, you may be leaving that person stranded with a family doctor that has no clue how to interpret mold data.

May I suggest some middle ground?  Provide general information on the health effects of mold.  For this, you only want the most trusted resources available.  There is too much information in the internet that tends to one of two extremes.

This month’s featured websites are the two most reliable resources to reference when dealing with health effects:

• WHO Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Dampness and Mould (2009)
• IOM Damp Indoor Spaces and Health (2004)

The first document is from the World Health Organization and the second from the Institute of Medicine, which is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. You can read the documents online, but I recommend purchasing the bound books to add to your library.

These two documents are by no means perfect.  They do, however, provide authoritative information on the whole “soup” of problems that happen with dampness.

To visit this month’s featured websites, click the two links below:

• WHO Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Dampness and Mould
• IOM Damp Indoor Spaces and Health

Have you ever asked a doctor about an indoor air quality problem? Let’s just say their knowledge is typically lacking. However, some interesting initiatives are educating healthcare providers and public health professionals on the importance of IAQ.

The American College of Preventive Medicine launched an entire website dedicated to Indoor Air Quality thanks to a grant from the EPA’s Indoor Environments Division. The site allows users to view a few free webcasts. I would recommend the following: (more…)

University of Texas

Don’t Mess with Texas

University of TexasIndoor Air is a triennial and international conference that will be held in Austin, Texas next year. The conference was in Copenhagen in 2008 and Beijing in 2005. The University of Texas will host and organize the event at the Austin Convention Center June 5-10, 2011.

To get people excited for this great event, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at the quality of technical content you can expect. Jeffrey Siegel, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Texas and he maintains a personal website of his published articles and conference papers.

Dr. Siegel includes links to much of his published work and allows visitors to download copies.   (more…)