How a harm budget can be used to regulate Indoor Air Quality in Dwellings

This work quantifies the chronic harm caused by long-term exposure to common indoor air contaminants in dwellings located in the global north. Two methods are used to compute DALYs. The first uses incidence data and the second considers toxicological evidence. They are synthesised to produce Harm Intensities, the number of DALYs per person per unit of annual-average concentration the person is exposed to. Then, uncertainty in annual mean concentrations for 45 contaminants commonly found in dwellings in the global north is determined from a systematic literature review. 
PM_2.5, PM_10-2.5, NO₂, O₃, and HCHO are estimated to be the most harmful contaminants by an order of magnitude. Together they account for >99% of the estimated harm from typical indoor exposures and should be designated contaminants of concern in dwellings in the global north. A harm budget approach is used to show that complying with ASHRAE standard 62.2 could see the total population harm drop by ~70%.