Exposure to indoor air contaminants is one of the major sources of exposure to environmental health stressors, especially given that people spend the majority of their time indoors. Indoor air quality is determined by the ability of outdoor source pollutants to infiltrate indoors and indoor sources such as building materials, furniture, burning of solid fuels, smoking (environmental tobacco smoke), electric appliances, use of cleaning products and other household chemicals, and indoor climatic variables. Thus, the variability regarding the species and the levels of contamination within and between the indoor microenvironments is very wide, even among the rooms of a family residence.
The main objective of the project will be to define optimal methodologies for predicting indoor exposure to chemical and non-chemical contaminants and their inter-relationships. The work will include the following elements:
To read more information on this project or download the INTERA newsletter, please visit www.intera-home.eu.
D.A. Sarigiannis, S.P. Karakitsios, M.P. Antonakopoulou and A. Gotti (2012). Exposure analysis of accidental release of mercury from compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). Science of the Total Environment. 435-436, 306-315
Since the beginning of the research, the INTERA project has generated a newsletter. You can find some issues hereunder:
Research project summaries:
Integrated Exposure for Risk Assessment in Indoor Environments (INTERA): A review of existing indoor air pollutant exposure data and models by C. Garden, S. Semple and K. De Brouwere
Integrated Exposure for Risk Assessment in Indoor Environment (INTERA): Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) case study by A. Sí¡nchez Jiménez, E. Kuijpers and K. S Galea
Integrated Exposure for Risk Assessment in Indoor Environments (INTERA): The use of case studies to test INTERA tools by Karen Galea, Arja Asikainen, Spyros Karakitsios, Denis A. Sarigiannis, Katleen De Brouwere, Araceli Sanchez-Jimenez, Alberto Gotti, Sean Semple and Matti Jantunen
A full chain mechanistic approach assessing health risks from multiple sources in indoor environments by Arja Asikainen, Alberto Gotti, Spyros Karakitsios, Denis A. Sarigiannis, Sean Semple, Rudi Torfs, Katleen De Brouwere, Karen Galea, Martie van Tongeren and Matti Jantunen