Indoor Air Quality and Childhood Asthma: Method Development and Preliminary Results

Relatively little is known about the impact of air quality in the home on the health of children suffering from respiratory illnesses such as asthma. This study examines the effect of indoor chemical and biological pollutants as well as the physical environment on the respiratory health of a carefully defined population of children between the ages of 4 and 15 years in a deprived community in the North West of England. The primary objective of this paper will be to present a preliminary review of the results obtained thus far for the chemical pollutants and the physical environment. These findings will be used later in the study to determine whether they are in any way associated with the increased prevalence of childhood asthma in the UK. The study used a database from a previous project, which identified children with probable asthma using a questionnaire and clinical evaluation. For each case there is a matched control (matched for age, sex and, where possible, sibling number) from the same community. A number of indoor pollutants, inclusive of respirable suspended particulate, environmental tobacco smoke specific particulate (UVPM, FPM, SolPM), volatile organic compounds and nitrogen dioxide have been measured in conjunction with temperature and relative humidity in 69 homes of the study population.