Development of WHO Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

The working group of the Global Update of WHO Guidelines for Air Qualityrecommended development of guidelines specific to indoor air, accounting for theglobal burden of disease associated especially with unvented indoor combustion ofsolid fuels and other factors that are not covered sufficiently by the general air qualityguidelines. First phase to follow up consisted of a planning meeting convened inBonn, Germany, in October 2006 that outlined a structure for the IAQ guidelines andidentified exposure factors to be included into the IAQ guidelines. The factors include- next to traditional pollutant specific approaches - also biological agents and indoorcombustion. In the second phase, the guideline development process is started fromthe subgroup of biological agents, followed up by addressing policy implications ofactions to reduce health risks due to indoor air pollution with biological agents in thethird phase. Further work on air pollutants and indoor combustion is to be developedin the near future.