Workplace air quality gets little attention

More than 1.3 million office buildings in the U.S. have air-quality problems that could lead to health problems among workers, according to the Labor Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

And, according to a report from researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., U.S. companies could save $200 billion in lost workforce productivity if they provided better indoor air quality.

The Environmental Protection Agency has tabbed detectable levels of more than 100 known carcinogens in U.S. offices, according to the Los Angeles Times.

So, what federal or state agency is in charge of monitoring the air quality in Rhode Island’s office buildings?

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“There is no state or federal agency willing to deal with the problems of indoor air quality in offices,” said Jim Celenza of the Rhode Island Committee on Occupational Safety and Health. “And there really aren’t any standards or regulations in place.”

In recent years, the issue of air quality in U.S. buildings has gained attention. A cover story in BusinessWeek magazine last year titled “Is Your Building Killing You?” said that up to 30 percent of the country’s office population suffer symptoms of poor air quality, such as sneezing and coughing, headaches, nausea, itchy eyes and throats and dizziness.

Any combination of poor ventilation and contaminants such as mold, bacteria, pesticides and various chemicals can cause symptoms.

But OSHA traditionally has focused more on industrial settings than on offices.

“As a practical matter, office spaces don’t generate the level of contaminants that are regulated,” said Kipp Hartman, area director for OSHA. “That’s not to say people aren’t made to feel uncomfortable

Locally, Barrington Middle School has battled mold problems in recent years, Hartmann said.

For businesses, officials say indoor air quality is an acutely economic issue. Recent studies show a direct correlation between air ventilation and worker health, according to Mark J. Mendell, an epidemiologist and team leader for the indoor-air-quality research effort at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Workers in office environments with below average ventilation had substantially higher work-related health symptoms than workers in offices with average or above average ventilation rates.

“The problem is that there are no national standards for ventilation rates,” Mendell said.

While local building codes specify air-intake standards when buildings are constructed, only a few states regulate air quality in existing buildings, Mendell said.

California, for example, mandates that every building provide at least as much outdoor-air intake as when it was originally built, he said.

“You’d think this wouldn’t be asking too much, but only two or three states have done it,” Mendell said.

Historically, federal regulations have been aimed at manufacturing plants for environmental hazards. But as an increasing proportion of the U.S. workforce is based in offices, some are wondering why more isn’t being done to monitor office environments.

“Very little has been done in the U.S. in taking this problem seriously,” Mendell said. “We’re way behind Europe in the amount of research that has been done on this issue.”

Employees or companies that suspect air-quality problems at the office can report to several different agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA, NIOSH or the state health department, according to Eugene Benoit, indoor-air coordinator for the EPA’s Region 1. But without regulations in place, it will be difficult to convince building managers or property owners to make changes.

“The people who make the decisions in buildings usually aren’t the people who suffer the consequences when there are air-quality issues that lead to health problems,” Mendell said.

Some private companies will test air quality in office buildings. But without standards to measure the findings against, it is difficult to quantify results.

“You can test for air quality, but there are no regulations to say what’s good and what’s bad,” Benoit said.

More information on indoor air quality in office buildings can be found at the EPA’s Web site: www.epa.gov/iaq

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