Send us a textEver wondered if that tiny spot of mold in your bathroom corner actually matters? A study from France just answered this question with a resounding yes – and the findings should make us all reconsider how we think about household mould.Mouldy area size and asthma symptom score and control in adults: the CONSTANCES cohortDrawing from an impressive pool of over 28,000 adults, researchers have established something both alarming and actionable: even the smallest visible mold growth significantly increases asthma risk in adults. This isn't just about massive infestations; the study reveals a clear "ladder of risk" where each step up in mold coverage – from mere spots to larger areas – progressively worsens asthma symptoms and control. People living with any visible mold were approximately 40% more likely to have current asthma and poorer symptom control.What makes this research particularly valuable is its practical approach. Rather than treating mold as a simple yes/no question, researchers asked participants to estimate contaminated areas using everyday references (like comparing 0.2 square meters to three sheets of paper). They found that mould in bedrooms and living rooms – where we spend most of our time – had the strongest health impacts. The message is clear: mold isn't just a maintenance or aesthetic issue; it's a health hazard from the moment it appears, and its impact scales with its size.For housing providers, healthcare professionals, and anyone who lives in a building (which is all of us!), these findings transform how we should approach even minor mold growth. That little patch in the corner isn't just unsightly – it's actively affecting respiratory health. Mouldy area size and asthma symptom score and control in adults: the CONSTANCES cohortSupport the showCheck out the Air Quality Matters website for more information, updates and more. And the YouTube Channel The Air Quality Matters Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. Eurovent Farmwood Aereco Aico Ultra Protect Zehnder Group The One Take Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. SafeTraces & InBiot All great companies that share the podcast's passion for better air quality in the built environment. Supporting them helps support the show.
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#88 Richard Blakeway: Damp, Mould, and the Balance of Power and Fairness
Send us a textRichard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman for England, takes us on a profound journey through the evolving landscape of social housing complaints and the critical issue of damp and mould that has transformed the sector."Home is a really emotional place," Richard explains, capturing the essence of why housing complaints differ from those in other sectors. With an inquiry reaching the Ombudsman approximately every 20 seconds, the scale of housing issues becomes starkly apparent. As an advocate for fairness, the Housing Ombudsman exists to address power imbalances between landlords and residents, particularly in a housing crisis where residents have limited choice and voice.The conversation delves into how the Ombudsman's spotlight on damp and mould has shifted industry practices. Before the tragic death of Awaab Ishak, the Ombudsman noticed they weren't seeing enough damp and mould complaints relative to other housing quality indicators – suggesting these serious issues weren't being adequately addressed. The subsequent cultural shift has been remarkable, with Richard noting: "One thing I have seen less of is tenant blaming... that suggests there's been a change in behaviors."Perhaps most revealing is his insight into what good practice looks like – culture, leadership, curiosity, and empathy forming the foundation for effective housing management. The implementation of Awaab's Law this autumn represents a pivotal moment, though Blakeway cautions against treating it as a "bolt-on" rather than integrating it into a comprehensive framework for housing quality.Looking toward the future, he emphasizes the importance of data and technology in moving from reactive to predictive maintenance models. While complaint volumes continue to rise (35% increase in the last financial year), he hopes to eventually see the uphold rate decline ahead of case volumes – indicating real improvement in local resolution and rebuilding trust.The Housing OmbudsmanRichard Blakeway LinkedInAwaabs LawSupport the showCheck out the Air Quality Matters website for more information, updates and more. And the YouTube Channel The Air Quality Matters Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. Eurovent Farmwood Aereco Aico Ultra Protect Zehnder Group The One Take Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. SafeTraces & InBiot All great companies that share the podcast's passion for better air quality in the built environment. Supporting them helps support the show.
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One Take #16 - The False Promise of Indoor Comfort: Why Current Building Standards May Be Harming Our Health
Send us a textWhat if the very standards designed to keep us comfortable in buildings are actually making us unhealthy? This provocative question lies at the heart of groundbreaking research from Delft University of Technology.It challenges the fundamental assumptions that have guided building science for decades. Even when our buildings meet all current standards for temperature, lighting, acoustics, and air quality—and even when occupants report feeling comfortable—the fact remains that spending 90% of our lives indoors may be harming our health.The problem stems from our reliance on simplistic "single dose-response" models that isolate individual stressors like CO2 or temperature. These models fail on three fronts: they prioritise preventing short-term discomfort over promoting long-term health, they ignore how environmental factors interact with each other, and they're based on an "average person" who doesn't actually exist. The thermal comfort example is particularly striking—our pursuit of thermally neutral environments might be contributing to obesity by never challenging our bodies to regulate their own temperature.Professor Bluyssen advocates for a shift toward "situation modeling"—a holistic approach that considers the entire context of environment, individual, and activity. Her field studies reveal just how diverse our environmental preferences are, even within shared spaces like classrooms. When a teacher opens a window, it might please some students while making others miserable by letting in traffic noise.The path forward isn't about finding magic numbers for ventilation rates or perfect temperatures. It's about creating flexible, adaptive spaces that accommodate our diverse needs and give us greater control over our environments. Though this approach is more complex, it represents our best chance at designing indoor spaces that truly support human health and wellbeing rather than merely preventing immediate discomfort.The need to go beyond the comfort-based dose-related indicators in ourIEQ-guidelinesSupport the showCheck out the Air Quality Matters website for more information, updates and more. And the YouTube Channel The Air Quality Matters Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. Eurovent Farmwood Aereco Aico Ultra Protect Zehnder Group The One Take Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. SafeTraces & InBiot All great companies that share the podcast's passion for better air quality in the built environment. Supporting them helps support the show.
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#87 - Maxime Interbrick: Street-Level Intelligence Is Changing How We See Cities
Send us a textIs world of ambient air quality monitoring is in a deadlock. Despite having targets and technology, air pollution remains a persistent urban challenge. Why aren't things changing? This question drives Maxime Interbrick, co-founder of Sparrow Analytics, whose company is pioneering a revolutionary approach to environmental intelligence by deploying mobile sensors on vehicle fleets.In this conversation, Maxime reveals how mobile monitoring provides a fundamentally different perspective than traditional static sensors. While government-operated reference stations offer precise measurements at specific points, they miss the dramatic variations in pollution levels from street to street. Sparrow's approach combines mobile sensors mounted on postal vehicles and delivery fleets with AI analysis to create comprehensive pollution maps showing street-level variations in real-time.The results are surprising – between 60-80% of city areas actually have good air quality. The problem isn't that entire cities are polluted; it's that we lack the granular data to identify the "healthy paths" through our urban environments. This insight transforms how we might approach urban navigation, especially for vulnerable populations like children with asthma or elderly residents. Rather than avoiding cities altogether, we can make informed choices about when and where to travel.Maxime shares fascinating examples from their deployments, including discovering dangerously high pollution levels behind a school where older children were dropped off – caused by carpet dust in buses – and identifying extreme urban heat islands where temperature variations of 10-15 degrees occur within the same street. These discoveries enable practical, immediate interventions rather than waiting years for infrastructure changes.What makes this approach particularly powerful is how the data can be integrated into platforms people already use – navigation apps, fitness trackers, health applications, and real estate services. Instead of creating another dashboard nobody checks, Sparrow envisions environmental intelligence becoming as routine as checking the weather. For cities struggling with pollution, this offers a path forward that empowers individuals while informing better urban planning.Have you checked your neighborhood's air quality today? Perhaps it's time to start. Follow Sparrow Analytics' journey as they expand across Europe and the United States, bringing environmental intSupport the showCheck out the Air Quality Matters website for more information, updates and more. And the YouTube Channel The Air Quality Matters Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. Eurovent Farmwood Aereco Aico Ultra Protect Zehnder Group The One Take Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. SafeTraces & InBiot All great companies that share the podcast's passion for better air quality in the built environment. Supporting them helps support the show.
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One Take #15 - Questioning the Questionnaire
Send us a textHave you ever wondered how researchers measure something as subjective as your comfort in a building? The latest episode of Air Quality Matters takes a surprising step back from specific pollutants to examine one of the most fundamental yet overlooked tools in indoor environmental research: the questionnaire.When scientists ask you to rate how stuffy a room feels or how comfortable the temperature is, they're relying on scales and questions that may be fundamentally flawed. Marcel Schweiker's paper "10 questions concerning the usage of subjective assessment scales" exposes the messy reality behind these seemingly simple measurements. From the "wild west" of inconsistent scales across studies to the profound problems of language translation, we discover why comparing results between different research projects is nearly impossible under current practices.The episode dives deep into the philosophical core of measurement itself. What are we actually capturing when someone circles a number on a comfort scale? Rather than obtaining clean data, we're glimpsing a complex psychological construct filtered through cultural expectations, sense of control, and even social desirability bias. A person who knows they can open a window will perceive air quality differently than someone who feels trapped in the same conditions. The podcast explores alternative measurement approaches including physiological signals and behavior observation, but concludes that questionnaires remain essential - if properly designed.For anyone interested in buildings, air quality, or the science of human comfort, this episode offers a fascinating look at how the research community must evolve to better capture our messy, subjective experience of indoor environments. It's a call for more thoughtful, critical approaches to the science that shapes the buildings where we spend 90% of our lives. Listen now to gain a fresh perspective on what it truly means to measure comfort in the built environment.Ten questions concerning the usage of subjective assessment scales in research on indoor environmental qualitySupport the showCheck out the Air Quality Matters website for more information, updates and more. And the YouTube Channel The Air Quality Matters Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. Eurovent Farmwood Aereco Aico Ultra Protect Zehnder Group The One Take Podcast is brought to you in partnership with. SafeTraces & InBiot All great companies that share the podcast's passion for better air quality in the built environment. Supporting them helps support the show.
Air Quality Matters inside our buildings and out.This Podcast is about Indoor Air Quality, Outdoor Air Quality, Ventilation, and Health in our homes, workplaces, and education settings.And we already have many of the tools we need to make a difference.The conversations we have and how we share this knowledge is the key to our success.We speak with the leaders at the heart of this sector about them and their work, innovation and where this is all going.Air quality is the single most significant environmental risk we face to our health and wellbeing, and its impacts on us, our friends, our families, and society are profound.From housing to the workplace, education to healthcare, the quality of the air we breathe matters. Air Quality Matters
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