Research Brief. Keeping People Healthy Indoors

• Author: Elissa Parker
• Position: Vice President Research and Policy Studies
• Pages: 59-59

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ❧ Page 59

Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Jan./Feb. 2010

ELI Report

moisture control, reme-

diation of mold, radon,

asbestos. and lead prob-

lems, and use of healthier

cleaning practices and

integrated pest manage-

ment to reduce exposure

to chemicals. Yet building

management is a vast, de-

centralized arena. Stronger

laws and regulations are

needed to institutionalize

best practices.

For nearly two decades,

Tobie, the Director of

ELI’s Indoor Environ-

ments and Green Buildings

Program, has worked to

strengthen laws and poli-

cies that protect health and

improve indoor environ-

ments throughout a state,

school district, or locality.

She has published dozens

of reports aimed at educat-

ing policymakers, advo-

cates, and parents about

how to improve state and

local policies.

One of the best ways

to prevent problems is to

incorporate key design fea-

tures into new buildings.

is is why we published

our 2003 report, Building

Healthy, High Perfor-

mance Schools, which de-

scribes promising policies

and programs that jurisdic-

tions might adapt to trans-

form how they design and

build facilities. Since then,

about a dozen states have

adopted laws that require

schools to use healthy and

green building criteria.

Yet it is existing build-

ings that pose the greater

policy challenges. Under-

funded and understaf‌fed,

our country’s 125,000

schoolhouses are often ill-

equipped to support the

learning process. So this

summer, Tobie released a

new report, School Indoor

Air Quality: State Policy

Strategies for Maintain-

ing Healthy Learning

Environments, that shows

how state laws and policies

can be crafted to ensure

that all schools deal with

basic indoor air issues as

part of their operations and

maintenance. State of‌f‌icials

in New Hampshire and

Washington and advocacy

groups in Connecticut,

Massachusetts, and New

York are already using the

report to improve existing

laws and regulations to ad-

dress indoor air issues.

As a former legal-aid

attorney, Tobie is poised to

help address the even more

daunting challenges posed

by multi-family housing,

where many families live

with poor conditions they

are powerless to f‌ix and

unable to escape.

In 2003 we issued Im-

proving Indoor Air Qual-

ity in Rental Dwellings: A

Review of Policies in Five

U.S. Localities, which

describes how local govern-

ments are making ef‌fective

use of housing and health

codes to address mold, pest

control, and other issues.

And in the 1990s, ELI

began calling for attention

to radon in rental housing

through reports, articles,

and tenant pamphlets and

providing policy options

to ensure that tenants are

not exposed to high radon

levels. Just this year, Maine

became the f‌irst state to re-

quire that landlords test for

and mitigate radon in their

buildings — a f‌irst in the

country, and a policy that

ELI highlighted in those

early reports and our ongo-

ing education programs.

Strong state and local

policy frameworks will

be even more important

in coming years, as we

confront the ef‌fects of cli-

mate change and work to

mitigate and adapt to it.

Temperature and weather

extremes will cause people

to spend even more time

inside. More severe storms

increase the potential for

mold contamination.

And as we work to make

buildings more ef‌f‌icient,

retrof‌itting and tightening

to reduce the use of en-

ergy, we also risk reducing

ventilation and increasing

contaminant levels. In

the face of these continu-

ing challenges, Tobie and

our Indoor Environments

Program will continue to

ensure that state and local

of‌f‌icials, advocates and pol-

icymakers have the tools

they need to keep people

healthy indoors.

At a workshop for

environmental health of-

f‌icials in D.C., directors

of municipal programs

from around the country

grappled with commu-

nity health problems. e

workshop participants

— public-health profes-

sionals from communities

ranging from Hartford and

Chicago to the Seminole

Tribe in Florida — turned

to ELI Senior Attorney

Tobie Bernstein for help.

She responded by outlin-

ing how local agencies can

use existing laws to protect

community residents now

and how they can work to

develop stronger policies in

the future.

We all know that in-

door air quality is af‌fected

by many factors — the

ventilation within a build-

ing and a wide variety of

contaminants, including

radon gas, mold, dust, and

lead paint. But most of us

don’t realize that indoor

levels of pollutants may

be 2–5 times higher than

outdoors. Pollutants such

as radon, asbestos, and

formaldehyde have been

identif‌ied as carcinogens.

ere is a lot known

about how to manage

some major indoor envi-

ronmental risks — through

proper ventilation and

Research Brief

Keeping People Healthy

Indoors

Elissa Parker

Vice President

Research and Policy Studies