The Truth About Indoor Air Quality

Here’s something you probably don’t know: The air inside your home and office is more polluted than the air outside. That’s a fact that comes from no less than the US Environmental Protection Agency, notes Elizabeth Irvine, a registered nurse and the author of Healthy Mother, Healthy Child: Creating Whole Families From the Inside Out.
“One of the biggest issues about indoor air quality is that people don’t think about it,” she said. “But just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” In fact, she notes, according to the EPA, indoor air quality is actually four to five times worse than outdoor air quality. 
That’s a problem for two reasons: We spend far more time indoors than outdoors; and the very people who would suffer the most from poor
indoor air quality—those with chronic respiratory problems like asthma and allergies and other medical conditions—spend even more time indoors. “Exposure to the fine particulates (in pollution, dust, pet dander, etc.) impairs breathing and can cause an increased risk of asthma, stroke, heart
attack and other illnesses,” notes Irvine. 
Because you can’t take a mop to your indoor air, Irvine recommends you spring for a whole-house air cleaner, which functions as a kind of sieve for the air circulating through your house, removing particulates, dust mites, and other allergens. “By adding a whole-house air cleaner...to your home’s heating and cooling system, you can remove up to 99.98
percent of the bad stuff in your indoor air to provide your family with a healthier and cleaner living environment,” she said. 
Other options include room air filters, which provide similar benefits on a room-by-room basis, based on the clean air delivery rate of the device. If you have to pick just one room, says Irvine, choose the bedroom. Along those lines, aim to make your bedroom as allergy-free as possible by removing carpeting, curtains, stuffed animals and covering mattresses with allergy-free bedding.
Finally, she recommends hiring a reputable firm to clean your air ducts on a regular basis.