By Lynette Martins
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis, investments in better ventilation and air filtration in schools are critically important to the health of students and communities. In this article I offer policy proposals through which communities may improve indoor air quality in school buildings.
The Importance of Clean Air
Some viruses such as SARS-COV-2 spread through aerosolized droplets that can hang in the air in a room event it is unoccupied. By supplying buildings with additional clean air (ventilation) and purifying the air in circulation (filtration) we can reduce the airborne transmission of such viruses. This is because ventilation coupled with air filtration ensures that there is increased circulation of outside air coming into the building but also that there is adequate cleaning so that other smaller matter such as respiratory pathogens are filtered out.
Mitigating against the diseases in this way will ensure a more systemic response to emergency preparedness, rather than relying on individual choices such as masking and social distancing. This approach can not only reduce the health impacts of COVID-19, but also the added benefits of alleviating other impacts of poor ventilation, such as sick building syndrome (due to CO2 build up), cognitive deficits, lethargy and also absenteeism due to illness.
Schools are particularly important target for this strategy for many reasons. First and foremost by mitigating the transmission of illnesses students will maintain access to education. Additionally, staff and children are indoors for significant amounts of time at school and there are times in which close, unmasked contact may be more predominant, e.g. when having lunch in the cafeteria. This means potential exposures may be more frequent and/or longer in duration. Moreover infectious disease experts recommend a layered approach to the mitigation of respiratory illnesses. Vaccines are one important layer, however with low vaccine uptake, especially in the pediatric population, there is a need to respond with other strategies that rely less on individual choice.
Policy Recommendations
To prevent school closures due to high in-school transmission, or staffing constraints, we must implement a thorough strategy to provide clean indoor air. Schools will need to fortify their existing ventilation infrastructure by installing properly functioning HVAC systems with MERV-13 air filters and ensuring the air exchange rates are consistent with the latest evidence of best practices. Additionally, they may wish to consider making the Corsi-Rosenthal box, a simple and effective tool that can be easily made by students as STEM projects and placed directly in the classroom as efficient air filters to pollutants.
To ensure clean air in schools, I propose two policy goals and two potential strategies to achieve these goals.
- Policy goal #1: First, I recommend enhancing the built environment in school buildings to ensure a basic standard of ventilation (air exchange) and filtration. Air cleaners should be non-ozone producing approved by the American Society for Heating Refrigerating and Air-conditioner Engineers (ASHRAE). Schools may utilize high quality (MERV13) filters properly maintained units (HVAC) and air cleaner (HEPA) in every classroom.
- Policy goal #2: Second, I recommend changing the informational environment in school buildings by implementing some necessary tools such as CO2 monitors. Carbon dioxide monitors are a proxy for ventilation with higher carbon dioxide corresponding to poorer ventilation. This signals that the air we exhale, is building up in the indoor environment, rather than being exchanged with outdoor air. By requiring CO2 levels to be displayed in school buildings, encourages a more democratized approach to knowledge of indoor air quality and provides individuals with an increased ability to assess risk and perhaps hold institutions accountable.
- Strategy #1: There is no federal law governing indoor air quality. As such, local school boards could create policies and regulations for indoor air quality by way of their delegated authority by the state. While there is some state variation to the extent that school boards have authority to do so, those that do can establish minimum IAQ standards based on the best available evidence. Historically, school boards have been widely accepted as being the local democratic body capable of representation for educational governance. With countless challenges to individual level mitigation measures, including masking and social distancing, and constraints in resources related to space, these regulations seem relatively uncontroversial.
- Strategy #2: To fund improvements to school ventilation/air filtration, communities could utilize a tax on homeowners. This solicits civic involvement, spreads knowledge of the issues around indoor air quality and promotes community health. Importantly, schools that are publicly-owned provide opportunities in which to shift the predominant social norms specifically related to indoor air quality.
Feasibility and Implementation
Improving the air quality in schools is an optimal policy for infection control amid the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis; it is relatively non-controversial and relies less on individual-level behaviors, and in that regard is equitable. Additionally, using school closures as an infection control tool is both infeasible and disfavored by parents. Health impacts of improved indoor air quality would include the reduction of anticipated COVID cases and a concomitant reduction in other respiratory diseases such as influenza. Decreased prevalence of virus would in turn result in less sickness and death, the social resumption of normalcy and economic recovery.
However, to help clean air initiatives gain momentum, schools and advocates will need the help of various partners. For example, the parents of students, the community members, federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency (as informational allies), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, aerosol scientists, and engineers (e.g. Clean Air Crew), academics, the ASHRAE task force, local small businesses, and advocates who have advanced other environmental issues, such as radon emissions, can coalesce around these issues. In turn, schools that implement these mitigation measures may be valuable research partners; researchers may consider these schools as sites of study and work to assess the health impacts of ventilation/filtration upgrades.
Lynette Martins, LL.B. (Hons.), PGDip, MBE, LL.M. is a Senior Research Fellow at the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy and an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School.
