Humans weren’t meant to live in bubbles of hospital-grade air quality. As a species, we’ve spent millions of years on earth with all the bugs and the animals and dirt. Now, home builders are trying harder and harder to keep the air inside of a home clean of all that nature.
Despite all the stories of home owners feeling they can breath better in a home with high-grade indoor air quality (IAQ) or of kids’ asthma dissispating, Yale environmental engineers see this focus on IAQ as a problem. In a new report published in the Science and Society journal, Yale environmental engineers argue that we’re locking out the benefits of mother nature by promoting strong IAQ.
Previous studies have proven that children who grow up on farms are exposed to exponential amounts of microbes, and because of this, have developed stronger immune cells to fight ails like allergies.
The researchers note indoor air quality is often much worse than outdoor air quality, but sterilizing the indoors shouldn’t be the answer to the problem. Instead, they propose creating ventilation systems that rely on using outdoor air.
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