What’s a Healthy Home?

As our culture has transitioned over the years, people spend a majority of their time indoors. The National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS), performed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, found that Americans spend around 87% of their time indoors and an additional 5.5% inside vehicles.(1) This totals roughly 92.5% of our time spent in enclosed environments.

If this statistic feels unsettling, consider another significant finding. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoor air pollutants can be 2 to 5 times higher than outdoor levels. In some instances, these levels can exceed outdoor air pollutants by more than 100 times. (2) This indicates that the way we construct our homes, the furniture we choose, and our daily living habits have a profound impact on our health and well-being.

Key indoor pollutants include:

• Radon: A naturally occurring gas that rises from the ground and can accumulate in buildings.
  Carbon Dioxide (CO2): A naturally occurring gas, including that which we exhale, which can also build up indoors.
• Particulate Matter (PM2.5 and PM10):
  • PM2.5: Very small particulates that can penetrate our lungs and skin, including smoke, cooking byproducts, and candle burning residues.
  • PM10: Larger particulates such as dust mites, mold spores, and pet dander.
• Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Radiation: Ubiquitous due to technology, EMF radiation is pervasive in homes and affects everyone, although some individuals are more sensitive to it.
• Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): Aerosolized compounds from various sources that can be detrimental to health.

While many of these pollutants can be mitigated through appropriate measures, they remain vastly understudied, leaving much to be discovered. In this series we will be taking a high-level view of these pollutants, what they are, how they impact our homes and what we can do about it. The aim is to inform and empower. Stay tuned….

If you’d like to jump into some of the nerdy details, IndoorChem is one of the leading communities giving attention to actual tests of the indoor microbiome. In the linked Youtube videos, Corbett Lunsford gives a summary of their initial study called HOMEChem.