Turn Offices and Schools into Healthy Buildings
2 minute read![turn offices and schools into healthy buildings](https://d2h8hramu3xqoh.cloudfront.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Turning-our-Offices-and-Schools-into-Healthy-Buildings.webp)
COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of Indoor Air Quality and healthy buildings, especially for our offices. We spend up to 90 percent of our time indoors. So it’s no wonder that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has diagnosed indoor air pollution as a major health crisis. The agency says indoor air is up to 5 times more polluted than outside air. This air pollution leads to major health issues such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, anxiety, and stress.
Why Turn Offices and Schools Into Healthy Buildings
To combat this public health crisis, the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University was founded. The school’s been studying the impact of healthy buildings for decades and established 9 Foundations for Healthy Buildings: Ventilation, Air Quality, Thermal Health, Moisture, Dust & Pets, Safety & Security, Water Quality, Noise, and Lighting & Views.
Increasing access to these foundations helps increase employee wellness, retainment, and productivity. According to one of our partners, Wellness Within Your Walls, whose mission is to reduce toxins in indoor living environments, the wellness industry is a burgeoning market. It is set to become a trillion-dollar industry. Employers will begin recruiting workers with different wellness amenities. Understandably, these amenities are not cheap; however, it’s more expensive to not provide fresh air, natural light, and humidity control.
Absenteeism in Schools is a curable illness
A study found that 57 percent of all sick leave was attributable to poor ventilation. Health insurance provider Kaiser Permanente found that absenteeism costs employers $1,685 per employee annually. Comparatively, workers in a room with a pollution source typed 6.5% slower than those without.
A National Institute of Health study found that adding a ventilation system to an office building provides a savings of $6,500 to $7,500 per employee per year due to increased productivity and decreased absenteeism.
Poor Indoor Air Quality is incredibly costly.
Healthy Air System for Healthy Buildings
The AprilAire Healthy Air System® helps address these concerns with its multi-pronged approach to increase fresh air ventilation, humidity control, and air filtration to reduce the proliferation of airborne viruses and other contaminants.