Development of French Indoor Air Quality Guidelines

Abstract

Indoor air quality guidelines (IAQGs) provide safe levels of indoor pollutant concentrations below which adverse health effects are not expected to occur in the general population, including susceptible subgroups. The French Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health Safety and the French Scientific and Technical Centre for Building have been leading a national working group to develop IAQGs based on health criteria. Firstly, a list of substances of concern was established for which IAQGs should be provided, and priority substances were identified. For each substance, toxicological and epidemiological data was reported and discussed. A critical effect and, if possible, a mode of action explaining the toxicity was described. Existing health based IAQGs already established and recommended by international groups or by some countries are collected, together with available toxicity reference values from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Health Canada and the Dutch Agency for Environmental Health. After an in‐depth analysis of these values, IAQGs are proposed. The production of an IAQG for a threshold pollutant (formaldehyde) and for a non‐threshold carcinogenic compound (benzene) are presented as examples.

Formaldehyde in the Indoor Environment

“…Sweden has adopted the WHO-guideline value, but a further reduction to 60 μg m −3 is currently under discussion . In France, the French Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (AFSSET) has proposed guideline values of 10 μg m −3 and 50 μg m −3 for long-term exposure and short-term exposure (2 h), respectively. , The Polish Ministry of Health and Social Welfare issued a decree to reduce the pollutants emitted by building materials and furnishings in inhabited enclosed areas. The maximum allowable concentrations for formaldehyde, categorized as Category A (up to 24 h exposure per day) and Category B (8−10 h exposure per day), are 50 μg m −3 and 100 μg m −3 , respectively.…”

Indoor Air Pollution, Related Human Diseases, and Recent Trends in the Control and Improvement of Indoor Air Quality

“…Generally, the WHO and USEPA guidelines are the maximum concentrations during specific durations (i.e., 1 h, 24 h, or 1 year). Moreover, the IAQ guidelines of the WHO and USEPA seem non-applicable to occupational sectors [114], as they usually are applied for the control of IAQ inside households, schools, hospitals, public buildings, and offices [47]. In addition, each country will formulate specific standards or guidelines suitable to their own particular circumstances [115,116].…”

Association of carbon dioxide with indoor air pollutants and exceedance of health guideline values

“…The pollutants considered in this study were previously defined as high priority pollutants in indoor air according to a health-based ranking method by the French Observatory for indoor air quality (OQAI) and the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) [21,22]. The ranking resulted in 15 high priority pollutants in dwellings, schools and offices, including formaldehyde, benzene, acrolein, acetaldehyde, PM 10 and PM 2.5 mass fractions which were selected in this study.…”

“…The long-term health-based guideline values for inhalation of benzene (for an excess individual lifetime cancer risk of 10 À5 ), formaldehyde and acrolein were defined by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES), respectively as 2 mg/m 3 , 10 mg/m 3 and 0.8 mg/m 3 [21,34]. For Table 1 Description of the measurement methods (more information available in Ref.…”