A new scientific paper from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) addresses several strategies for improving indoor air quality in facilities such as schools, restaurants, convention centres, and gyms.
“Biological Air Quality Considerations for Non-Healthcare, As Built Environments” is the first official scientific paper of GBAC, a Division of ISSA, and was developed with support from the National Airduct Cleaners Association (NADCA).
“It was a privilege for our scientific advisory board to work with NADCA on this multi-authored paper which provides actionable steps to make facilities safer during and beyond the pandemic,” said GBAC Executive Director Patricia Olinger. “Achieving peer review and publication means that our paper has met standards for quality and importance to global health.”
The GBAC-funded paper has been published in the GBAC-TIPS Journal, an open-access journal founded by The Infection Prevention Strategy (TIPS) to advance innovations, ideas, and processes that make a difference in global health. The journal aims to provide access to evidence-based science through both peer-reviewed and perspective articles.
The paper will also be indexed into Google Scholar and ResearchGate for the global scientific community to reference and cite in future publications.
“This accomplishment further demonstrates how GBAC prepares the world to respond to current and future biological crises,” said GBAC Senior Director and TIPS Co-Founder Michael Diamond. “The GBAC-TIPS Journal makes crucial scientific research and information like this paper accessible to the public to promote collaboration and make strides in improving public health.”
The focus of the paper’s conclusions is on the importance of good air quality in buildings in mitigating the spread of infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2. The paper addresses several options for improving the quality of indoor air in non-healthcare settings such as schools, restaurants, and gyms, the implementation of which will make these facilities safer not only during a pandemic but also after the current crisis is behind us.
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It highlights the importance of the process of first assessing the risk of airborne disease in a facility and then evaluating how to mitigate that risk. In particular, it emphasizes that elimination at the source, mitigating re-entrainment risks, and best utilizing HVAC, ventilation, and filtration are vital steps for facility managers to take, as well as highlighting the need for proper disinfection, monitoring, and air cleaning.
Read more about the paper here.
