A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that long-term exposure to poor air quality can have the same damaging effect as smoking 20 cigarettes a day, with air pollution shown to be more dangerous than passive smoking.

Many employees are exposed to poor air quality on a regular basis and employers are often unaware of the risks and what they can do to manage them. A new generation of air quality monitoring equipment is now available for measuring the levels of common air pollutants in the immediate areas where staff are working.

Employees working close to areas of high road traffic, particularly with poor air circulation, are especially vulnerable to the effects of pollution. As well as being trapped indoors or brought in through ventilation systems, pollutants can also build up in outdoor spaces, particularly in cities with high buildings, leading to exposure levels which may exceed limits set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Diesel fumes were classified as a Class 1 Carcinogen by the WHO in 2017, after it found that people exposed to diesel fumes at work were up to 40% more likely to develop cancer. As such, employers can now be sued if their employees develop cancer later in life as a result of exposure, as reported by The Sunday Times following the reclassification.

The EU limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure are 40µg/m3 annually and 200µg/m3 in an hour, no more than 18 times in a year. Many official measurement stations in cities worldwide report NO2 above the annual limit but less is known about local levels of this pollutant. Because NO2 is produced as a direct result of a source, such as traffic exhaust or diesel generators, levels of NO2 regularly exceed the hourly limit when measured in ‘hotspots’, such as busy road junctions, where it is not practical to install a large air quality measurement station, or on a private site.

Previously, air quality has been likened to passive smoking. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined in 2013 that air pollution is more dangerous than passive smoking, and was now the leading cause of cancer. At the time, the IARC’s Kurt Straif told the South China Morning Post “The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances. We consider this to be the most important environmental carcinogen, more so than passive smoking.”

Measuring ozone (O3) as a part of an air quality monitoring routine is also becoming increasingly important, especially in hotter climates and areas of increased VOC emissions. O3 at ground level is dangerous and is formed by reactions with nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from traffic and industrial emissions in the presence of sunlight. This means hotter, sunnier weather can dramatically increase O3 pollution in urban and industrial areas. The WHO currently states the daily limit of O3 levels to be 100μg/m3 over an 8-hour mean and advise that prolonged exposure to high levels of O3 can have severe effects on human health. These include asthma, inflammation of the airways and reduced lung functionality, just as the recent studies comparing air quality to smoking has found.

Senior co-author of the study Dr Joel Kaufman, from the University of Washington, said: “We were surprised to see how strong air pollution’s impact was on the progression of emphysema on lung scans, in the same league as the effects of cigarette smoking, which is by far the best-known cause of emphysema.” The professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and epidemiology added: “We really need to understand what’s causing chronic lung disease, and it appears that air pollution exposures that are common and hard to avoid might be a major contributor.”

Teams responsible for protecting staff from exposure to hazards can now understand exposure in relevant locations by installing compact air quality monitoring equipment designed to continuously measure pollution levels in ambient air.

AQMesh pods are small, wireless units which can be mounted on a lamp post, fencing, wall or a similar mounting point close to where staff are breathing potentially polluted air, both indoors and outdoors. Air quality readings are secure and confidential, accessed online by authorised personnel only.

AQMesh has been used on building sites, industrial sites and at roadside locations worldwide, as well as measuring the air intake into office buildings, in order to monitor the air quality of employees working in these areas on a daily basis and helping to protect them.

Two AQMesh pods were used to measure NO, NO2, O3 and CO during May and June 2017 at Upplands Motor Stockholm AB car dealership in Sweden, located on the highway between Stockholm city centre and Arlanda airport. The objective was to measure the air quality outside and inside the combined showroom and workshop, demonstrating the importance of measuring common traffic-related pollutants indoors as well as outdoors. The project was also to assess the suitability of AQMesh for this application, including ease of installation and relocation.

The car dealer is situated immediately next to a major highway and the premises are used for car servicing and repairs as well as sales. The air in the building is managed using a standard heating and ventilation management system which ensures adequate air exchange when the building is in operation.

One of the pods was moved indoors between 9^th May and 9^th June – this can be clearly seen in the temperature plot comparison for both pods during May and June (the pod moved indoors is shown by the blue line on the plot below). The indoor unit showed significantly elevated levels of NO and CO indoors during that time, compared to the unit which remained outside. Although the NO levels indoors largely tracked the outdoor levels, they were consistently around 40-50ppb higher. This may be because the ventilation system is not adequately exchanging air indoors, as the ventilation system in the building is activated at 7am and stops at 6pm when the dealer closes for the day.

The AQMesh pods were then mounted together outdoors again at the end of the indoor trial, clearly showing that the units continued to agree with each other when measuring in the same space, with a pod-to-pod R2 of over 0.8.

Whilst many heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC) focus on CO2 measurement – managed through air exchanges – and particle filtration, they can actually make levels of common pollution gases, such as NO2, worse. Air intakes may be situated where outdoor air quality is poor, such as in a car park or near a road, air intake is often during busy traffic periods, and HVAC systems may be switched off just as outdoor air is clearing, trapping pollution indoors overnight.

With diesel exhaust fumes – which include NO2 – now classified as a class 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organisation, forward-thinking companies, such as Upplands Motor, are becoming the first to understand these issues and are focusing on management of indoor air to ensure that the air quality for their workers is at least better than outdoors. AQMesh can also quantify exposure of employees to NO2 and other pollutants when working outdoors, such as on civil engineering sites, directing traffic, or driving a bus.

AQMesh was designed to offer an easy-to-use air quality monitoring system that can deliver localised real-time readings, improving the accuracy and scope of gathering air quality data in order to support initiatives to reduce air pollution and its risk to human health. It continues to be proven as a reliable and accurate instrument for monitoring air quality, whether indoors or outdoors.

On 9th April The Sunday Times reported that employers have been told they are legally obliged to protect their staff from diesel fumes — and could be sued if workers develop cancer later in life.

Read the full article here.

Employers who want to assess risk to employees can use AQMesh to take round-the-clock readings of a range of measurements including key pollutants NO2 and PM2.5. The small, battery-powered devices transmit data using the mobile phone network and data can be accessed using a secure online login.

The best quality data about air pollution comes from reference stations, using validated equipment. However, such stations are large, immobile and require power and communications infrastructure. AQMesh can be located in a fixed position to monitor a workplace on an ongoing basis, such as inside a facility, next to a professional driver or on a fence next to a construction team. AQMesh can be calibrated against reference instruments to establish reading validity.