English

Oily wood preservatives Xylamit were used in the residential and public buildingindustry in Poland in the 1960s and 1970s for impregnation and fungicidal treatment.They were a source of air pollution due to the emission of toxic compounds causingthe deterioration of hygienic conditions indoors. The most serious negativeconsequences, felt to this day, were caused by the use of these preparations toimpregnate porous fibreboards laid in the ceilings of buildings as insulation in theindustrial systems of residential building industry (the so-called large panelbuildings).

The BRITA in PuBs project (Bringing Retrofit Innovation To Application in Public Buildings)aims at increasing the market penetration of innovative and effective retrofit solutions toimprove energy efficiency and implement renewables, with moderate additional costs.In the first place, this is realised by the exemplary retrofit of 8 public demonstrationbuildings in the four participating European regions (North, Central, South, East).

In European demonstration projects the main interest is in new technologies and in how tospread the application of best practices. Strategies to manage processes and to involvestakeholders are less developed. When technologies fail to have the calculated energyperformance, then occupant behaviour is mentioned as the unknown variable. Often theoccupants are viewed as a problem group rather than the starting point for innovations.It is possible to develop projects bottom up and to reach high performance qualitynonetheless.

The incidence of asthma and allergy has increased throughout the developed worldover the past forty years (1). The incidence is much higher for children than adults.From being a relatively uncommon disease, a few decades ago, allergies today, inmany regions, are affecting a large part of the population. The European AllergyWhite Paper (1997) noted that with the exception of AIDS, only few diseases, besidesallergies, have increased two- or three-fold within a short time (2). Allergic diseasesare supposed to be caused by a complex interaction between genetic andenvironmental exposures.

indoor exposures, such as VOCs, phthalates, tobacco smoke and biological agents.This paper focuses solely on the biological exposures. Exposures to allergens,microbial agents and other biological particles are risk factors to these health effects,but the exact causal connections or the mechanisms underlying the symptoms are stillnot well understood. Among the open questions are e.g.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world and accounts for 12.3% of allnew cancer in Europe. About 375,000 new cases of lung cancer were estimated forEurope in 2000; 303,000 in men and 72,000 in women. The number of deaths wasabout 347,000 (280,000 in men and 67,000 in women). However, there are substantialdifferences in incidence of lung cancer in the different regions and populations withinEurope (Tyczynxki, 2003).

COPD is a chronic respiratory disorder responsible for a major burden to the societyworldwide. Although the majority of COPD occurs in current or former smokers, anot negligible proportion of the disease also occurs in persons who have neversmoked. Available data in the literature indicate that indoor pollution exposure largelyaffects respiratory health worldwide. Conservative estimates show that between 1.5million and 2 million deaths per year could be attributed to indoor air pollution, with asignificant proportion of deaths due to COPD.

The key indoor air exposures leading to cancer and severe cardiovascularconsequences are radon, certain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and incompletecombustion generated particulate matter (PM and PAHs) and carbon monoxide. Ofthese radon [1] and carbon monoxide [2] are dealt with in focused presentations, PMand VOCs are covered in the current presentation.Complete oxidation of a hydrocarbon fuel would result in only water and carbondioxide as combustion products.

European citizens want to live longer, healthier, in an environment of low involuntaryrisks, and at an affordable cost. Urban environmental policies should, therefore,manage the determinants of health as far upstream as possible and improve thecitizens quality of life. People are exposed to a multitude of chemical, physical andbiological stressors in their environment, some of which are apparently harmless,others of low health significance and some incur significant risks to health, at least forvulnerable individuals.

In the European Union lung cancer death is the most common cause (circa 20%) oftotal cancer deaths. For 2006 it is estimated that 236,000 lung cancer deaths occurredin the EU 25 with the majority of these being due to active cigarette smoking. Fromthe pooling of 13 residential radon epidemiological studies in 9 EU countries it hasbeen estimated that about 9% of lung cancer deaths may be due to radon exposure inthe home. In this paper an account is given of the lung cancer risk estimates derivedfrom these and other residential radon epidemiological studies.