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Identification of chemical and biological determinants, their sources, and strategies to promote healthier homes in Europe

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INQUIRE (Identification of chemical and biological determinants, their sources, and strategies to promote healthier homes in Europe)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-02-29

INQUIRE aims to protect citizen health by providing knowledge, tools and measures to substantially improve Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Our mission is to guide and foster innovation in policy, regulation, and industry towards sustainable solutions, products and policies/regulations by gathering and sharing new data and science-based evidence on indoor determinants beyond IAQ guidelines. We contribute to the European Green Deal and EU’s Zero Pollution Action Plan.
Air pollution is a main determinant of early death risk, responsible for more than 6 million premature deaths worldwide each year. European outdoor air quality (AQ) standards are in place for a range of pollutants to protect European citizens. However, exposure in indoor environments may be even more relevant as European citizens spend up to 90% of their time indoors and the concentrations of many pollutants are higher indoors than in outdoor urban environments. Yet there is still inadequate knowledge on chemical and biological determinants in indoor environments, their sources and the human health risk they pose. Regulators lack a comprehensive list of hazardous determinants in indoor environments, hindering actions to ensure healthy buildings. There is an evidence-based consensus that the determinants of IAQ are more numerous and complex than the IAQ parameters defined by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) IAQ guidelines on biological and chemical pollution. Today, >350,000 chemicals are in commerce (>100,000 in the EU) and many of these are of relevance to IAQ. Many other unknown or poorly characterized chemicals enter the European market unchecked in imported commercial products and household materials, despite current chemical management regulations. Humans are ubiquitously and increasingly exposed to such chemicals indoors where articles such as building materials, furniture, electronics, personal care products, cleaning products, and toys contain synthetic chemicals, which can be released to indoor air and particles. The types of adverse health effects of exposure to such chemicals go beyond cancer and increased deaths; e.g. endocrine disrupting effects are of particular concern. In addition, interactions between chemicals and the indoor microbiome may be important in mediating adverse health effects. Most of the European citizens (84%) are rightfully concerned about the health impacts of exposure to chemicals in everyday products. Yet to improve the health and well-being of European citizens, we must have a clear understanding of the multitude of indoor pollutants, the most relevant sources for human exposure, and what strategies are most effective for improving AQ of indoor spaces.
INQUIRE will provide science-based evidence to support the characterization and prioritization of hazardous chemical and biological determinants of household IAQ together with their sources and exposure drivers. INQUIRE focuses particularly on families with infants and young children (<5 years old) that spend substantial time indoors. We focus specifically on home environments, the dominant indoor environment for young children. We will evaluate innovative actions to substantially reduce the number and quantity of hazardous chemical and biological determinants in homes, reducing harmful exposures and positively impacting the health of residents. INQUIRE’s outputs will contribute to building a better and more comprehensive strategy for improving IAQ and making healthier homes.
INQUIRE has successfully implemented most of its tasks during the first 18-month period. The focus has been on laying a solid groundwork for the fulfilment of its goals and making impact in later stages of the project and after the projects end. This groundwork has been done at multiple levels of the projects and involved all work packages to develop and consolidate methods and tools to enable research activities and FAIR data storage. We have performed a baseline sampling campaign in 25 homes in six countries under WP1. This was thoroughly planned, with detailed effort going into sampling strategies, SOPs, questionnaires and ethical clearance to ensure harmonization between individual campaigns and a solid foundation for later outputs and deliverables. We have synchronised analytical procedures and streamlined the workflows in WP2 and 3 to lay the groundwork to produce high-quality data on chemical and biological determinants and toxicological effects. We have optimized strategies for interventions to occur at later stages. We have analysed emissions of VOCs and SVOCs from consumer products, which will provide a basis for further tasks using models to predict good intervention strategies. Preparations for future impact have also been initiated in WP5, which will produce high-impact outputs and deliverables drawing on work from WP1 to 4 at later stages of the project. We have actively communicated within the consortium to ensure the compatibility and applicability of the generated data. We have completed the spatial data infrastructure. We have done groundwork to ensure the data produced in INQUIRE is FAIR. FAIR data is key to achieving a high impact from INQUIRE outputs. We have established channels for communication with the wider public to communicate and disseminate our future outputs. We have recruited stakeholders. We have established routines for project management and internal communication that are keys for achieving high impact from the project.
A core objective of INQUIRE is to extend the current list of chemical and biological determinants in indoor environments, through a series of coherent and harmonized surveys in eight representative European countries and Australia using state-of-the-art chemical and biological screening analyses. We will provide policymakers and regulators with the main risk factors associated with the identified indoor determinants and propose revised regulatory strategies and IAQ standards to improve IAQ. During the first 18-months period, we have focused on establishing a new and streamlined workflow that will allow us to produce high quality data on chemical and biological determinants and their toxicological effects.
The inclusion of emerging pollutants in evaluations of IAQ is a core component of INQUIRE. The EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability highlights the need for Europe to respond rapidly and effectively to the challenges posed by hazardous chemicals, particularly endocrine disrupting chemicals and PFAS. INQUIRE will directly support this by characterizing the sources of chemicals of emerging concern in homes, including PFAS and plastic additives with endocrine disrupting potential (e.g. flame retardants and plasticizers). Through comprehensive sampling including consumer products, INQUIRE will link indoor presences of hazardous chemicals with their presence in consumer products and building materials.
Overall concept of INQUIRE work plan