PROGRAMME

Indoor air pollution has been listed as one of the five most significant threats to public health, according to a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment (Brightman et al., 2008). People spend much of their time (80 to 90%) indoors (homes, office buildings, and schools), where they are exposed to a complex mixture of air pollutants. High concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particular matter (PM) negatively affect indoor air quality (IAQ), human health (Lahtinen et al., 2004), and well-being (Frontczak and Wargocki, 2011; Lukcso et al., 2016). Over the years, the anthropogenic sources of emissions have increased dramatically due to industrial development, and their overall emission balance has increased, as almost every human daily activity, such as cooking, cleaning, painting (making paints), smoking, driving motor vehicles, etc., contributes to the emissions of VOCs (Zhang et al., 2017). Also, there are emissions from various materials, including building materials and their additives, such as floor coverings (Uhde and Salthammer, 2007; Vuetilovoni, 2015), as well as from consumer products such as cleaning products, air fresheners, perfumes, cosmetics, and personal care products (e.g., hair dyes) (Kansal, 2009; Lerner et al., 2014), pharmaceuticals, varnishes, and insecticides (Reinikainen and Jaakkola, 2003), but also from incoming polluted ambient air (Kotzias, 2021; Uhde and Salthammer, 2007; Vuetilovoni, 2015). Technical factors like insufficient outside air supply for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, high building humidity (Wolkoff, 2018), high temperature, high levels of dust, inadequate lighting, and the presence of mold or fungi are among the main factors that worsen the effects of poor IAQ and increase actual pollutant concentrations (Bergström et al., 2013; Herbig et al., 2016). An additional and crucial factor for the overall quality of the enclosed environment is energy conservation in houses and public buildings. The requirement to develop airtight structures resulted in an increase in IAQ due to the accumulation of atmospheric contaminants in the inside environment. The requirement for producing consumer goods and building materials with low emissions, along with the adoption of adequate ventilation, is considered imperative. The risk to human health of many chemical compounds present in indoor air is largely unknown and difficult to predict due to the lack of toxicological data and information on dose-response characteristics in humans or animal models. Besides, with the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the importance of IAQ in crowded environments has become apparent. Undoubtedly, VOCs and PM are part of people's daily lives since they arise from different activities of human everyday life (Lafond, 2015). The latter gaseous pollutants have long- and short-term effects on human health and the environment since some of them are dangerous and harmful and cause issues with both (Zhang et al., 2017). Also, the respective emissions contribute to atmospheric pollution by triggering the production of secondary organic aerosols (SOA).