Environment and Health in Children Day Care Centres

• Author(s): Neuparth, Nuno ; Papoila, Ana Luísa ; Aelenei, Daniel ; Cano, Manuela ; Paixão, Paulo ; Viegas, João ; Martins, Pedro ; Araújo Martins, José ; Leiria Pinto, Paula ; Caires, Iolanda ; Pedro, Catarina ; Nogueira, Susana ; Mendes, Ana ; Aguiar, Fátima ; Teixeira, João Paulo ; Proença, Carmo ; Piedade, Cátia ; Santos, Madalena ; Silvestre, Maria José ; Brum, Laura ; Nunes, Baltazar ; Guiomar, Raquel ; Curran, Martin D. ; Carvalho, Ana ; Marques, Teresa ; Virella, Daniel ; Alves, Marta ; Marques, João ; Rosado-Pinto, José
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/1894
• Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Nacional de Saúde
• Subject(s): Indoor Air Quality; Children Health; Environment; Ventilation; Viral Infections; Building Characteristics; Ar e Saúde Ocupacional
• Document Type: Book
• Language: English
• Editor(s): Neuparth, Nuno; Aelenei,Daniel; Caires, Iolanda; Teixeira, João Paulo; Viegas, João; Cano, Manuela; Pinto, Paula Leiria

Description

This project addresses a set of common clinical problems in the context of children attending day care centres. It is common sense that children get sick more often as soon as they start attending a day care centre on a daily basis and this is particularly true for some groups at risk, as wheezing infants and wheezing pre-school children. Concerning this, some questions remain unclear: 1. The role of indoor air quality - what is the health impact of indoor air environment (including indoor pollutants, house dust mite, temperature and humidity) in wheezing children? 2. The role of virus infections - We don’t know the real role of virus infections in respiratory conditions at day care centre level. There is a lack of information concerning how indoor air environment influence virus infections. 3. The role of building ventilation - what is the impact of building ventilation in the health of wheezing and non-wheezing children? How is ventilation affecting indoor air quality? How is ventilation of day care centres affected by the structure of the buildings? 4. Social impact of this study - what should be the recommendations to improve IAQ? What is new in this project is the collaboration of a health team (medical doctors and other health professionals) with environment specialists, mechanical, civil engineers, epidemiologists and statisticians.