Children’s Exposure to Indoor Particulate Matter in Naturally Ventilated Schools in India

Abstract

The high levels of indoor particulate matter in developing countries and the apparent scale of its impact on the global burden of disease underline the importance of particulate as an environmental health risk and the consequent need for monitoring them particularly in indoor school microenvironments. PM10, PM 2.5 and PM1.0 levels were monitored inside and outside the classrooms of four naturally ventilated schools during winter (December 2007 to January 2008) and summer (April 2008 to May 2008) as seasonal campaigns using Grimm 1.109 along with CO2, temperature, humidity and ventilation rate. Additionally, data on classroom condition, school building, surrounding area and prevalence of health symptoms were collected with the help of a questionnaire. During winter, mean indoor PM10, PM2.5 and PM1.0 concentrations ranged up to 497, 220 and 135 μg m —3, which lowered to 3, 3 and 2 times, respectively, in summer as compared to winter. The average indoor/outdoor ratios were found to be >1 at almost all the sites. Furthermore, indoor—outdoor correlations were carried out, indicating poor correlations at all the sites except at one school located in residential area. Inter-particulate ratios in the indoor environments were also obtained, indicating that strong correlations exist in both the campaigns, which were significant at p<0.01.