People spend most of their time indoors; thus, the maintenance of good indoor air quality is of paramount importance, especially in public settings for children. The National Public Health Center (NPHC) regularly investigates the air quality in different microenvironments such as dwellings, schools, swimming pools and office buildings. The NPHC had a leading role in several international projects focusing on indoor air quality in schools such as the SEARCH (2006-2009), SINPHONIE (2010-2012) or InAirQ projects (2016-2019). The main objectives of these projects were:
- to monitor indoor air quality
- to assess the health risk associated with indoor air quality
- to investigate the association between the recent health symptoms reported by the parents and the concentrations of air pollutants
- to investigate the effect of different risk reduction measures
- to develop strategies for the improvement of indoor air quality.
During these projects, large sets of indoor air quality data were produced in the framework of harmonized monitoring campaigns carried out in a large number of primary school buildings. Furthermore, multiple pollutants and physical parameters were assessed to obtain a comprehensive evaluation of indoor air quality. The results highlight that poor ventilation is still one of the major problems in the educational buildings. Based on the health risks associated with indoor air quality, NPHC elaborated public hygiene requirements for educational, teaching and childcare institutions and regularly monitors their implementation.
With the increasing demand to minimize the energy consumption of residential buildings, the relationship between building characteristics, occupant behavior and indoor air quality in energy-efficient buildings such as Passive Houses or nearly zero-energy houses receive increased attention. A national indoor air quality monitoring campaign was carried out in 15 Passive Houses in the heating and non-heating seasons between 2019 and 2021 in Hungary by the NPHC. Wide range of chemical and biological pollutants as well as physical parameters were investigated to obtain a comprehensive evaluation of IAQ in this study. The results highlights that risk reduction measures are needed to create healthier indoor environment in the Passive Houses as overheating, lack of proper particle filters in the mechanical ventilation system, and low air change rates and relative humidity were identified as frequent problems related to the building characteristics.