Factors Affecting the Indoor Air Quality and Occupants’ Thermal Comfort in Urban Agglomeration Regions in the Hot and Humid Climate of Pakistan

Abstract

The World Air Quality Index indicates that Pakistan ranks as the third most polluted country, regarding the average (Particulate Matter) PM2.5 concentration, which is 14.2 times higher than the World Health Organization’s annual air quality guideline. It is crucial to implement a program aimed at reducing PM2.5 levels in Pakistan’s urban areas. This review paper highlights the importance of indoor air pollution in urban regions such as Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, and Karachi, while also considering the effects of outdoor air temperature on occupants’ thermal comfort. The study aims to evaluate past methodological approaches to enhance indoor air quality in buildings. The main research question is to address whether there are statistical correlations between the PM2.5 and the operative air temperature and whether other indoor climatic variables have an impact on the thermal comfort assessment in densely built urban agglomeration regions in Pakistan. A systematic review analysis method was employed to investigate the effects of particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon oxides (COx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on residents’ health. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) protocol guided the identification of key terms and the extraction of cited studies. The literature review incorporated a combination of descriptive research methods to inform the research context regarding both ambient and indoor air quality, providing a theoretical and methodological framework for understanding air pollution and its mitigation in various global contexts. The study found a marginally significant relationship between the PM2.5 operative air temperature and occupants’ overall temperature satisfaction, Ordinal Regression (OR) = 0.958 (95%—Confidence Interval (CI) [0.918, 1.000]), p = 0.050, Nagelkerke − Regression (R2) = 0.042. The study contributes to research on the development of an evidence-based thermal comfort assessment benchmark criteria for the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Global Thermal Comfort Database version 2.1.