The Effect of Indoor Air Quality in University Classrooms on the Immunity of Its Occupants

Abstract

The spaces of the universities are among spaces in which it is necessary to provide indoor air quality, it focuses on airborne pollutants, health, safety, and thermal comfort issues, which will reflect positively on the health and performance of occupants, as universities are under increasing pressure to deal and respond with climate changes and sustainable development issues and other challenges associated with them. The University of Baghdad is among the prestigious universities at the level of Iraq and the Arab world as a whole, and to face the hot and dry climatic challenges of Baghdad city and ensure the strengthening of the immunity of the occupants in the educational buildings, the research problem was represented by testing indoor air quality in educational spaces and knowing its effects on the occupants. Therefore, the study evaluated two types of educational spaces (studio and classroom) in two evaluations, the first is the objective evaluation, which uses sensors to monitor indoor air quality, where (CO2, temperature, and relative humidity) were evaluated, and the second evaluation is a self-assessment, where the distribution of questionnaires on students, that tested the effect of air quality and appear disease symptoms on them, was monitored in two different evaluation periods, summer and winter. The obtained results showed that CO2 concentration levels were above the recommended limits in both spaces but the temperature and humidity are in an acceptable range. So based on the measured results, methods are proposed to improve indoor air quality in the classroom, and then came up with recommendations could be applied in similar spaces in the future.