Air Quality Matters

Simon Jones
  • 4.0 (4)
  • SCIENCE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Air Quality Matters inside our buildings and out.This Podcast is about Indoor Air Quality, Outdoor Air Quality, Ventilation, and Health in our homes, workplaces, and education settings.And we already have many of the tools we need to make a difference.The conversations we have and how we share this knowledge is the key to our success.We speak with the leaders at the heart of this sector about them and their work, innovation and where this is all going.Air quality is the single most significant environmental risk we face to our health and wellbeing, and its impacts on us, our friends, our families, and society are profound.From housing to the workplace, education to healthcare, the quality of the air we breathe matters. Air Quality Matters

  1. Stuffy Rooms, One-Star Reviews: The Commercial Reality of Poor Indoor Air Quality - OT38

    3D AGO

    Stuffy Rooms, One-Star Reviews: The Commercial Reality of Poor Indoor Air Quality - OT38

    This week, we step outside the usual world of homes, schools, and offices to ask a question that might reshape how we think about the hospitality industry: What if the physical performance of a hotel room matters just as much as the quality of service—and what if guests are already telling us this in their online reviews? The paper is titled The Impact of Indoor Environmental Quality on Tourist Accommodation Ratings Using Guest Reviews, published in the Journal of Building and Environment. It's authored by Fan Zhang and colleagues from Griffith University, the University of New South Wales, and several other international institutions. Using web mining and artificial intelligence, they analyzed over half a million Booking.com reviews from Australian hotels and serviced apartments to understand how indoor environmental quality—air quality, acoustics, thermal comfort, lighting—actually drives guest satisfaction and ratings. Traditionally, measuring occupant satisfaction in hotels has been nearly impossible. Post-occupancy evaluations require structured surveys, but try getting a business traveler rushing to the airport at 6am to fill in a 20-page questionnaire about ventilation rates. It's just not going to happen. So instead, these researchers used natural language processing to extract the actual, unprompted words from guests who stayed in these places—to see exactly what they care about. Key Topics Discussed: Three Factor Theory: A framework that categorizes any product or service feature into three buckets: basic factors (dissatisfiers), performance factors (the better it is, the happier you are), and excitement factors (unexpected bonuses). Almost all indoor environmental quality factors function as basic factors—guests expect them to be good, and if they're not, ratings plummet. The Big Three Failures: Poor cleanliness, poor indoor air quality, and bad acoustics were the specific failures that dragged accommodation ratings down the most. Stuffy rooms, musty smells, and hearing the elevator rattling through the walls all night are directly torching hotel revenues by driving down public ratings. Indoor Environmental Quality Accounts for 33% of Guest Ratings: In budget hotels, nearly a third of a customer's overall rating is driven by indoor environmental quality. In luxury accommodation, it's still about 24%. You can have the best marketing team and the friendliest staff, but if your building is fundamentally underventilated, your business will suffer. The COVID Effect: The pandemic drastically amplified our sensitivity to poor indoor environments. During COVID, the negative impact of poor indoor air quality and cleanliness on guest ratings got significantly stronger. People suddenly equated visible cleanliness and fresh air with their own personal safety and survival. The View Exception: In budget accommodation, a nice view was an excitement factor—people didn't expect it, so when they got one, they were thrilled. But in luxury hotels, the view reverted to being a basic factor. If you're paying 5-star prices, you expect 5-star views. The Case for IEQ Benchmarking: The researchers suggest that policymakers and industry leaders should implement formal indoor environmental quality benchmarking for hotels—similar to Australia's NABERS rating for office buildings. Imagine being able to check a hotel's certified ventilation and air quality rating before you even book a room. The Impact of Indoor Environmental Quality on Tourist Accommodation Ratings Using Guest Reviews https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113135 The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Overlooked Environment of Hotels 00:01:21 The Hospitality Blind Spot: Service vs Environment 00:01:52 The POE Problem: Why Traditional Surveys Fail in Hotels 00:02:24 The AI Solution: Mining Half a Million Guest Reviews 00:02:56 Three Factor Theory: The Framework for Understanding Buildings 00:04:06 The Eye-Opening Results: IEQ as a Basic Factor 00:05:03 The Triple Threat: Cleanliness, Air Quality, and Acoustics 00:05:44 The View Exception: Budget Thrills vs Luxury Expectations 00:06:30 The COVID Effect: When Air Quality Became Survival 00:07:53 The Bottom Line: IEQ Accounts for 33 Percent of Hotel Ratings 00:08:37 The Future: IEQ Benchmarking and Certification for Hotels 00:09:18 Study Limitations and the Reality of Guest Perception 00:09:55 The Main Takeaway: Engineering as Front-Line Business Survival

    11 min
  2. The Edifice Complex: Why Your Building Probably Doesn't Work and Nobody Cares - Adam Mugleton #109

    6D AGO

    The Edifice Complex: Why Your Building Probably Doesn't Work and Nobody Cares - Adam Mugleton #109

    This week, we sit down with Adam Muggleton, Chief Technical Officer at AESG and host of the Edifice Complex Podcast. Adam's career spans project management, property development, and commissioning across 21 countries—from the UK to the Middle East and North America. He views buildings not as architectural statements, but as complex machines that are likely underperforming. With decades of experience and zero patience for performative sustainability, he has developed a reputation for dismantling corporate jargon and shining a light on poor engineering and mediocre outcomes in the construction industry. His relentless focus is on commissioning and building performance. He doesn't just want to know if a building looks good at sunset—he wants to know if the HVAC actually works, if the air is healthy, and why the industry persists in delivering glorified caves with modern price tags. Beneath his sceptical, no-nonsense exterior lies a deep advocacy for human-centric design, driven by the belief that the only way to fix the construction industrial complex is through radical transparency, rigorous testing, and a refusal to accept average as the industry standard. Key Topics Discussed: The Commissioning Accident: How Adam fell into commissioning engineering by accident—and why commissioning is always an accident. No one wakes up at 16 and says they want to be a commissioning engineer. Yet it's one of the most critical roles in delivering functional buildings. The Consequences Problem: Why the construction industry is the only industry in the world where you can send out a set of documents riddled with errors and omissions—and not pay for those mistakes. Why there are no real consequences for poor delivery, and how that shapes everything from design to handover. Humans at the Centre of Buildings—A Waste of Time? A brutally honest discussion about whether the rhetoric of "humans at the center" actually matters when residential developers are at the bottom of the care chain, and the only real feedback that matters is whether people stop buying. The Elon Musk Question: Who is the Elon Musk of the built environment? Who is innovating, crushing it, doing the impossible? And why Adam's daughter and her engineering friends would rather flip burgers than work in the built environment. The Platinum Building Paradox: Why even high-performance buildings with all the badges can fail spectacularly—like a healthy buildings conference held in a room where everyone is sitting in a fog of their own breath because the ventilation can't handle 80 people. GUEST: Adam Muggleton - Chief Technical Officer, AESG | Host, Edifice Complex Podcast https://www.linkedin.com/in/buildingwhisperer/ https://aesg.com/uk/ https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/edifice-complex-podcast2 The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/ Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Ultra Protect (https://www.ultra-protect.co.uk/air-quality-matters) The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon. Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Accidental Commissioning Engineer 00:03:18 The Property Development Perspective: When Commissioning Becomes an Afterthought 00:04:50 The Consequence Problem: Why Construction Keeps Making the Same Mistakes 00:06:27 The Complexity Trap: Why Buildings Are So Difficult to Get Right 00:09:47 The Defects Dilemma: Cars vs Buildings and the Zero Defects Dream 00:10:51 The R&D Desert: Why Construction Firms Don't Invest in Innovation 00:15:49 The Building Hierarchy: Who Gets Good Air and Who Doesn't 00:19:09 The Human-Centric Building Myth: Why Residential Is at the Bottom 00:32:24 Breaking the Cycle: Commissioning as a Compliance Tool 00:51:19 The Supply Chain Reality: Who Really Designs Your Building 01:05:05 The Elon Musk Question: Where's the Innovation in Construction? 01:13:44 The Platinum Plaque Problem: High-Performance Buildings That Don't Perform 01:17:34 The Visibility Solution: Open Source Performance Data and Property Tax Penalties 01:20:41 The Housing Crisis: Why Government Must Get Back in the Game 01:37:35 The Optimistic Conclusion: Why Construction Is Still a Great Career

    1h 46m
  3. Garbage In, Garbage Out: Why Your Air Quality Models Are Only as Good as Your Data - OT37

    MAR 5

    Garbage In, Garbage Out: Why Your Air Quality Models Are Only as Good as Your Data - OT37

    This week, we tackle a question that goes to the heart of the performance gap in buildings: What if the problem isn't just poor construction or shoddy installation—but the data we're feeding into our models in the first place? There's an old saying in computer science: garbage in, garbage out. If you feed a perfect model with bad assumptions, you get a perfect calculation of a fantasy. And that's exactly what's been happening in indoor air quality modeling for decades. We've been relying on scattered, outdated, inconsistent emission rate data—pulled from 1990s conference papers, paywalled journals, and PDF reports buried in the internet—and wondering why our buildings don't perform as predicted. The paper is titled Pandora: An Open Access Database of Indoor Pollutant Emission Rates for Indoor Air Quality Modeling, published in the Journal of Building Engineering. It's the work of a huge international team, including Mark Adobati and colleagues from Annex 86, and it represents a massive effort to clean up the mess of data that indoor air quality modelers have been struggling with for years. Key Topics Discussed: The Data Problem: Why finding reliable emission rates for indoor pollutants has been a nightmare—scattered across thousands of sources, often in the wrong units, measured under weird conditions, and completely inconsistent. What Pandora Is: An open access, web-based database systematically compiling nearly 10,000 specific emission rates from the scientific literature, categorizing 740 different pollution sources—from paints and carpets to cleaning products, furniture, and even human beings. The Shocking Case Study: A simple child's bedroom modeled three different ways using data from Pandora. The total formaldehyde emission rate ranged from 342 micrograms per hour to over 6,000 micrograms per hour—a factor of 20 difference. If you designed ventilation based on the lower number, a trickle vent might be fine. Based on the higher number, you'd be installing industrial extraction. Why the Huge Discrepancy: The database contains data going back to the 1980s, when building materials were dirty—paints full of solvents, glues full of formaldehyde. Regulations like the French VOC label and German AGBB standard have forced manufacturers to clean up their act. If you use a statistical average of all data ever published, you're skewing your model with dirty data from 1995, predicting a problem that might not exist anymore. The Recommendation: Use the 25th percentile of the data for things like formaldehyde. This lower value is likely a much more accurate representation of modern, regulation-compliant materials. We might be systematically overestimating the chemical load from building materials if we rely on older datasets. Pandora: An Open Access Database of Indoor Pollutant Emission Rates for Indoor Air Quality Modeling https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2025.114216 Pandora Database: https://db-pandora.univ-lr.fr/ The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Data We Rely On 00:01:06 Garbage In, Garbage Out: The Input Data Problem 00:01:45 Introducing Pandora: A Massive Data Compilation Effort 00:02:27 The Scattered Data Nightmare: Why We Needed This 00:03:08 What's Inside: Construction Materials Dominate the Database 00:03:43 The Overlooked Sources: Cleaning Products and Human Pollution 00:04:34 The Case Study: A Child's Bedroom Reveals a Shocking Problem 00:05:41 The 20X Problem: Why Data Selection Method Matters Enormously 00:06:06 The Time Trap: Old Dirty Data Versus Modern Clean Materials 00:06:43 The Recommendation: Use the 25th Percentile for Modern Materials 00:07:03 The So What: We Might Be Solving Problems That Don't Exist Anymore 00:07:27 The New Risks: Recreational Chemicals and Activity-Based Pollution 00:08:17 The Living Project: Pandora Needs to Grow and Evolve 00:08:38 The Path Forward: From Guessing to Engineering Precision 00:08:59 Closing: Transparency and Understanding the Invisible Cloud

    10 min
  4. Beyond HVAC: Why Dehumidification Deserves the D - David Shirk #108

    MAR 2

    Beyond HVAC: Why Dehumidification Deserves the D - David Shirk #108

    This week, we step into the world of moisture in buildings—one of the most overlooked yet critical aspects of indoor air quality and building performance. While we talk about humidity constantly, we rarely stop to break down what we actually mean. What is moisture? Is it a pollutant? And why does it matter so much? We sit down with David Schurk, owner of HVAC Insight Consultants and a dehumidification specialist with over 40 years of experience in the HVAC industry. David has led system design, application engineering, and field implementation efforts across healthcare, aerospace, industrial, and mission-critical environments. He's an ASHRAE life member and distinguished lecturer, and a course developer and instructor for multiple ASHRAE Learning Institute professional development programs. Key Topics Discussed: Is Moisture a Pollutant? How humidity impacts human comfort, building integrity, and health. Why 30% of the way we regulate our body temperature relies on evaporative cooling—and what happens when high humidity impedes that process. The Operating Room Problem: A vivid real-world example of how high humidity in hospital operating rooms causes surgeons to overheat, insist on colder temperatures, which paradoxically increases relative humidity further—creating condensation, discomfort, and potentially dangerous conditions. Breaking Down the Terminology: Dry bulb temperature, wet bulb temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, vapor pressure, dew point temperature—what do these terms actually mean? How do they interact? And why does relative humidity confuse everyone? The Psychrometric Chart: The beautiful, intimidating, and essential tool that maps the relationship between temperature and moisture. How to read it, why it matters, and why it's still relevant in the age of apps and AI. Surfaces, Condensation, and Mold: Why moisture risk is one of the few pollutants that can damage the building fabric itself. How dew point, surface temperatures, and adsorptive materials create the conditions for mold growth and structural decay. The Case for HVAC-D: Why dehumidification deserves its own prominent place in the HVAC world. How traditional air conditioning treats dehumidification as a byproduct of cooling—and why that doesn't always work. Desiccant Dehumidification: How solid and liquid desiccants can achieve moisture removal at levels traditional cold coil systems simply cannot reach—down to negative 100-degree Fahrenheit dew points. The applications in hospitals, pharmaceuticals, semiconductor manufacturing, lithium battery production, and ice rinks. GUEST: David Schurk - Owner, HVAC Insight Consultants https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschurk/ The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with Particles Plus https://particlesplus.com/ Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Ultra Protect (https://www.ultra-protect.co.uk/air-quality-matters) The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon. Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Forgotten Child of Indoor Air Quality 00:02:27 Is Moisture a Pollutant? Defining the Problem 00:04:11 The Human Impact: Perspiration and Core Temperature 00:07:57 The Operating Room Problem: When Humidity Becomes Critical 00:14:30 Adding the D to HVAC: Why Dehumidification Deserves Recognition 00:28:59 Temperature Fundamentals: Dry Bulb, Sensible Heat, and Radiant Energy 00:36:05 Relative Humidity Explained: The Fish Tank Analogy 00:42:05 The Relative Humidity Trap: Why It Misleads Us 00:53:14 Absolute Humidity and Dew Point: The Real Measures That Matter 01:06:32 Wet Bulb Temperature: The Sling Psychrometer Explained 01:12:13 The Psychrometric Chart: Your Moisture Roadmap 01:18:21 Surfaces and Condensation: When Air Meets Materials 01:23:58 The Cold Spot Mold Spot Phenomenon 01:26:42 Controlling Moisture: The Thermostat Problem 01:30:59 The Efficiency Paradox: High SEER and High Humidity 01:32:55 Desiccant Dehumidification: Beyond the 32-Degree Limit 01:38:44 Real-World Applications: From Lithium Batteries to Pharmaceuticals 01:41:16 The Journey of a Dehumidification Jedi

    1h 45m
  5. From Fear to Action: Why Culture Shapes Air Quality Decisions in Germany vs Portugal - OT36

    FEB 19

    From Fear to Action: Why Culture Shapes Air Quality Decisions in Germany vs Portugal - OT36

    This week, we dive into a question that goes beyond sensors and science: What actually motivates people to invest in clean air for their homes—and does culture change everything? The paper is titled Indoor Air Quality: Predicting and Comparing Protective Behaviours in Germany and Portugal, published in Indoor Air, and it's based on survey data from 800 participants split evenly between the two nations. This research uses Protection Motivation Theory to unpack the psychological and cultural drivers behind adopting indoor air quality technologies—things like sensors, air purifiers, and ventilation systems. Key Insights: Germany: Autonomy and Family Duty: For German participants, the biggest driver was self-efficacy—the feeling of "I can do this." They need to feel capable, empowered, and in control. There's also a strong link to benevolence caring—particularly protecting close family, especially children. In Germany, you're not buying an air purifier for yourself. You're buying it because you feel a personal responsibility to safeguard your immediate circle. Portugal: Prove It Works: For Portuguese participants, self-efficacy didn't move the needle. Instead, it was all about response efficacy—does this thing actually work? They're pragmatic consumers. If you tell them it works, you better be able to prove it. Also, people who already had respiratory conditions were much more likely to adopt the tech—health status mattered in Portugal, but not in Germany. Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast: You can't use the same messaging in Berlin as you do in Lisbon. In Berlin, you say: "Take control of your home and protect your children." In Lisbon, you say: "This device is proven to reduce particulate matter by 99%." Fear Doesn't Work: Perceived vulnerability—the feeling that "I am personally at risk of getting sick"—had almost no impact on whether people adopted the technology. None. But perceived severity did. People are motivated when they acknowledge that poor air quality is a serious global or environmental problem—but they aren't motivated by feeling personally weak or susceptible. The COVID Hangover: The authors suggest this might be a legacy of the pandemic. We became accustomed to taking protective measures—masks, sanitisers, ventilation—not because we were terrified for our own safety every day, but because we recognised the severity of the threat in a broader, almost civic sense. This is Part Five of a five-part series exploring the psychology and perception of risk around air quality and ventilation. Indoor Air Quality: Predicting and Comparing Protective Behaviours in Germany and Portugal https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/3006342 The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Psychology of Air Quality Behavior 00:00:55 The Missing Episode: Germany and Portugal Study Context 00:02:12 The Research Framework: Protection Motivation Theory 00:03:07 Threat and Coping: The Two Mental Processes 00:03:59 The German Mindset: Self-Efficacy and Family Protection 00:04:59 The Portuguese Perspective: Prove It Works 00:06:10 One Size Doesn't Fit All: Cultural Messaging Matters 00:06:31 The Vulnerability Paradox: Fear Doesn't Drive Action 00:07:29 The COVID Legacy: Civic Responsibility Over Personal Fear 00:08:15 The Performance Gap Problem: Why Efficacy Matters 00:08:53 Demographics and Early Adopters: The Youth Factor 00:09:26 Study Limitations and Economic Context 00:09:52 The Key Takeaway: From Education to Empowerment 00:10:46 The Path Forward: Respect, Severity, and Solutions 00:11:17 Closing Thoughts: Understanding the Human Element

    12 min
  6. From Dust to Disease: The Hidden Respiratory Risks in Construction - Angie Brooker #107

    FEB 16

    From Dust to Disease: The Hidden Respiratory Risks in Construction - Angie Brooker #107

    This week, we step into one of the most overlooked yet critical areas of air quality and health: the construction site. While we spend so much time talking about indoor air quality during the operational phase of buildings, there's an entire workforce—construction and demolition workers—who spend their careers in environments that are anything but operational. And the risks they face are profound. We sit down with Angie Brooker, Occupational Health Manager at Multiplex, to explore the layered, dynamic, and often invisible hazards of dust exposure in construction—and what one of the UK's most forward-thinking organisations is doing about it. Key Topics Discussed: The Three Categories of Dust: Wood dust, general construction dust, and silica dust—each with different risks, different sources, and different control measures. Why silica, particularly from artificial stone, has become a focal point of concern. The Complexity of Construction Environments: Why construction sites are uniquely challenging—dynamic spaces, changing materials, multiple trades working on top of each other, high turnover, and the constant tension between program deadlines and health protection. The Artificial Stone Crisis: How engineered stone (containing up to 90% silica) has caused an epidemic of accelerated silicosis globally—and why Multiplex has banned it on all upcoming projects. The Australia case study, the thousand cases identified, and the proactive public health response. Hierarchy of Controls in Practice: From elimination and substitution (banning artificial stone) to engineering controls (on-tool extraction, ventilation) to administrative controls (training, awareness, health intervention tours) to PPE (the right mask, worn correctly, every time). The RPE Challenge: Why respiratory protective equipment is the frontline defence—but also why it's so hard to get right. Facial hair, improper fit, leaving masks hanging like "Christmas decorations," the heat and discomfort, and the cultural resistance to wearing them. Health Intervention Tours (HITs): How Multiplex walks sites monthly, focusing purely on health hazards, giving positive feedback and room-for-improvement interventions, and using personal dust monitors to make the invisible visible. The Silica 25 Programme: Three pillars—prevention (banning artificial stone), protection (appropriate RPE, education, awareness), and detection (health surveillance, lung function testing, baseline chest X-rays). This is a conversation about risk, responsibility, and the long game. It's about recognising that construction workers deserve to retire healthy—and that every day we delay action, we're storing up a public health crisis for the future. GUEST: Angie Brooker - Occupational Health Manager, Multiplex https://www.linkedin.com/in/angie-brooker-abba85123/ https://www.multiplex.global/ https://www.lungsatwork.org.uk/ The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) - Ultra Protect (https://www.ultra-protect.co.uk/air-quality-matters) The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon. Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: Construction Workers and Air Quality Risk 00:01:38 Meet Angela Brooker: Occupational Health in Construction 00:03:59 The Dust Challenge: Categories and Construction Hazards 00:05:44 The Dynamic Construction Environment: A Complex Risk Landscape 00:14:46 The Latent Disease Problem: Why Long-Term Risks Get Ignored 00:20:23 The Liability Gap: Accountability for Chronic Occupational Disease 00:24:50 The Cultural Challenge: From Bravado to Protection 00:36:06 Artificial Stone and Silicosis: The Accelerated Epidemic 00:34:42 The Silica 25 Program: Prevention, Protection, and Detection 00:09:08 Housekeeping and Hidden Exposures: The Resuspension Risk 01:07:57 Respiratory Protection: The Mask Problem 00:31:48 Health Intervention Tours: Making Health Visible on Site 01:19:47 Monitoring and Measurement: Dust Tracking Technology 01:35:14 Health Surveillance: Early Detection and the Medical System 01:31:58 The Smoking Factor: Compounding the Risk 01:27:12 From Nurse to Construction: Angela's Journey 01:39:19 The Path Forward: Getting the Basics Right 01:42:12 Closing: Resources and Support for Construction Workers

    1h 43m
  7. Mold, Confidence, and Change: What Actually Drives Air Quality Behavior - OT35

    FEB 13

    Mold, Confidence, and Change: What Actually Drives Air Quality Behavior - OT35

    This week, we dive into a powerful piece of research that moves beyond surveys and snapshots to ask: What actually motivates people in deprived urban communities to change their indoor air quality behaviours—and how long does it take? The paper is titled Psychological and Contextual Drivers of Indoor Air Quality Behaviours in a Deprived Urban Community: Evidence from Participatory Research, published in Building and Environment, and it's based on the Well Home Project—an 18-month longitudinal study tracking 110 households in West London. The Central Question Unlike most studies that rely on a quick one-off survey, this was participatory research. They didn't just treat residents as test subjects—they worked with them, engaged them, installed sensors in their homes, and followed them over time across four waves of surveys. This is crucial because we know that air pollution disproportionately affects deprived communities—people living in substandard housing, closer to busy roads, with higher rates of pre-existing health conditions. So understanding what drives them to act is absolutely vital if we want to address health inequalities. But here's the fascinating part: self-efficacy grew over time. At the start of the project, confidence didn't make a huge difference. But as the months went on, people with high self-efficacy became increasingly likely to act. Building that muscle of confidence—that feeling of "I can handle this"—is a process, not a switch. Key Insights: The Mold Effect—Visibility is Key: The strongest predictor of behaviour change in the entire study was the presence of visible mold and damp. If people saw mold, they acted. But mold is a late-stage indicator—by the time you see black spots on your wall, you've probably been breathing in damp air for months. We need to make other pollutants visible before the damage is done. Engagement is a Marathon, Not a Sprint: The longer people were involved in the Well Home Project, the more likely they were to change their behaviour. Sustained engagement is essential—not just a one-off flyer. What Actually Changed: Residents were most likely to report changes in window opening, cooking, and cleaning. But the only behaviours that showed a statistically significant increase over time were cooking and heating. Why? These might require more knowledge or confidence to adopt—things people learned through participation in the project. What Didn't Change: Smoking behaviour showed the lowest likelihood of change. Smoking is an addiction—a deeply habitual chemical dependency. Simply telling someone it's bad for indoor air is unlikely to break a nicotine addiction. Some issues require much more specific, targeted health interventions. The Education Paradox: Individuals with higher levels of education were actually less likely to adopt behavioural changes. The authors speculate this might be a ceiling effect—people with higher education might already be doing some of the right things before the study even started, so they had less room to improve. Participatory Research Works: By working with communities, the researchers didn't just gather data—they helped catalyze change. The residents who stuck with the project became more and more empowered to control their own environment. This is Part Four of a five-part series exploring the psychology and perception of risk around air quality and ventilation. Psychological and Contextual Drivers of Indoor Air Quality Behaviours in a Deprived Urban Community: Evidence from Participatory Research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.114089 The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Psychology of Indoor Air Quality in West London 00:01:16 The Well Home Project: Participatory Research in Action 00:02:14 The Health Belief Model: Understanding What Drives Action 00:03:36 The Key Findings: Severity and Self-Efficacy Win 00:04:41 The Mold Effect: When Visibility Drives Action 00:05:32 Time and Confidence: The Longitudinal Effect 00:06:23 What Changed and What Didn't: Behavior Breakdown 00:07:49 The Education Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions 00:08:39 The So What: From Scare Tactics to Empowerment 00:10:07 Closing Thoughts: Residents as Active Agents

    11 min
  8. Platinum Plaques and Broken Fans: The Gap Between Air Quality Theater and Reality 106 Simon Jones

    FEB 9

    Platinum Plaques and Broken Fans: The Gap Between Air Quality Theater and Reality 106 Simon Jones

    Welcome back to a solo episode—it's just me this week, fresh off a plane from Las Vegas and the AHR Expo, and honestly, in a bit of a reflective mood. When you spend a week inside the ultimate sealed box that is Vegas—losing track of time, weather, and what the air is actually doing—it puts things in perspective. It's comfort manufactured at massive scale, designed to keep you sedated, happy, and spending money. And stepping back into the real world, looking at the sheer volume of noise landing on my desk—commissions, pledges, papers, announcements—I had to pause. The Central Question On one hand, we've never had more attention. We have the Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air launching at the UN. We have the Global Pledge. We have Ashrae's new Indoor Environmental Quality Centre of Excellence. It feels like the ground is moving. But on the other hand, I look at who's in the room. I look at the jostling for position. And I have to ask: Is this a genuine revolution, or is it a narrative grab? Are we drawing a line in the sand for public health—or building a new VIP section for the haves, while the have-nots are left outside in the smog? Key Topics Discussed: The Narrative Grab: What happens when a grassroots movement gains enough momentum to become valuable—and the big institutions, legacy corporations, and governing bodies realize they need to own a piece of that story. Is the commission a natural reaction of a sector trying to organize itself? Absolutely. But is it also a narrative grab? Potentially, yes. Who's in the Room—and Who Isn't: When I scroll through the lists of participants and commissioners, I see a lot of familiar names. Big HVAC. Controls. Sensors. Certification bodies. Real estate. Western academics. But where is the social science? Where are the voices from the Global South—not satellite offices, but grassroots? Where are the housing activists fighting damp and mold in public housing? It feels heavy on corporate real estate, heavy on Western technocracy. The Risk of Premium Air: When you turn health into a premium product, you create a two-tier system: platinum-class air for Google headquarters, and the rest of us—schools with windows painted shut, social housing with fans that haven't worked since 2015, industrial units thick with process dust. If the narrative becomes owned by commercial real estate, does clean air become a luxury good you buy, rather than a fundamental human right that is owed? The Mandate Debate: A fascinating clash playing out in the academic literature right now. On one side, a paper in Science led by Lidia Morawska and others: Mandating Indoor Air Quality for Public Buildings. Bold, noble, seductive—strict numerical legal mandates for IAQ in public spaces. On the other side, a response from the folks at ISO TC 146 SC 6 and ASTM D22, raising a critical point: is a global mandate actually workable, or even dangerous? What happens when you apply a Western technological fix to a context that simply cannot support it? Indoor Environmental Quality—The Big Brother of IAQ: Intellectually, it makes sense. We have eyes, ears, skin, as well as lungs. But I'm terrified that air quality is going to get lost in this mix. We've spent decades trying to get people to care about the invisible. Now compare that to thermal comfort—if the room is two degrees too cold, complaints light up instantly. If we bundle IAQ into IEQ, my fear is the budget goes to the things people complain about. The money goes to new LED lighting, sound dampening panels, heat pumps—and the ventilation? Well, as long as nobody's fainting, we'll value-engineer the filters. The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with Farmwood (https://farmwood.co.uk/) - Eurovent (https://www.eurovent.eu/) - Aico (https://www.aico.co.uk/) The One Take Podcast in Partnership with SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast) Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website. (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast) If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here (https://www.youtube.com/@airqualitymatters-SimonJones). Do subscribe if you can, lots more content is coming soon. Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: Reflections from Vegas and the Sealed Box Experiment 00:03:24 The Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air: Progress or Narrative Grab? 00:04:47 Who's Missing from the Table? The Representation Problem 00:06:02 The Narrative Grab: When Air Quality Goes Mainstream 00:08:13 The Premium Product Problem: Clean Air as a Luxury Good 00:13:04 The Mandate Debate: Science Paper vs. Practical Reality 00:15:51 The Parachute Solution: Why One-Size-Fits-All Standards May Fail 00:19:00 Indoor Environmental Quality: The Marvel Movie Problem 00:24:38 The Broken Delivery System: When Platinum Buildings Fail 00:28:12 The Path Forward: From Talking Shops to Ground Truth

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4
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About

Air Quality Matters inside our buildings and out.This Podcast is about Indoor Air Quality, Outdoor Air Quality, Ventilation, and Health in our homes, workplaces, and education settings.And we already have many of the tools we need to make a difference.The conversations we have and how we share this knowledge is the key to our success.We speak with the leaders at the heart of this sector about them and their work, innovation and where this is all going.Air quality is the single most significant environmental risk we face to our health and wellbeing, and its impacts on us, our friends, our families, and society are profound.From housing to the workplace, education to healthcare, the quality of the air we breathe matters. Air Quality Matters

Information

  • Creator
    Simon Jones
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    161
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Air Quality Matters
  • Show Website
    Air Quality Matters

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