Abstract
Indoor air quality depends on many internal or external factors mutually interacting in a dynamic and complex system, which also includes indoor workplaces, where subjects are exposed to many pollutants, including biocontaminants such as pollen and fungal spores. In this context, the occupants interact actively with their environment through actions, modifying indoor environmental conditions to achieve their own thermal comfort. Actions such as opening/closing doors and windows and turning on/off air conditioning could have effects on workers’ health. The present study explored the contribution of human occupants to pollen and fungal spore levels in indoor workplaces, combining aerobiological, microclimate, and worker monitoring during summer and winter campaigns. We evaluated the overall time spent by the workers in the office, the workers’ actions regarding non-working days and working days, and non-working hours and working hours, during two campaigns of pollen and fungal spore monitoring. Our results showed that the biocontaminant values depend on many mutually interacting factors; hence, the role of all of the factors involved should be investigated. In this regard, aerobiological monitoring should be a valid tool for the management of occupational allergies, providing additional information to improve occupational health protection strategies.
Highlights
Indoor and outdoor settings may facilitate the development of several allergies in sensitized individuals
We evaluated the time spent by the workers in the office, and the opening/closing of doors/windows with respect to the non-working days (NWDs) and working days (WDs), non-working hours (NWHs), and working hours (WHs), and ran winter and summer campaigns regarding biocontaminant values in order to improve the control and preventive measures regarding the risk of occupational allergy
We found that the higher pollen concentrations belonged to Castanea sativa (40.7%), Urticaceae (35.8%), and Plantaginaceae (5.6%) (Figure 2a)
Summary
Indoor and outdoor settings may facilitate the development of several allergies in sensitized individuals. Several health effects could be due to exposure to numerous biocontaminants such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, molds, and pollen. These exposures, acting in combination with the microbiome, may affect allergic disease outcomes, underlining the relationships between the environment, microrganisms, and workers in indoor environments. These interactions ar complex, as they include airborne transmission and the occupants as vehicles both for the spread of internal biocontaminants through aerosols, and external biocontaminants through walking, clothes, and hair [5,6,7,8]. The presence of biogenic particles in the atmosphere may cause several communicable and noncomunicable diseases [11,12], and the risk depends on both the exposure levels and the sensitization of the subjects involved
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