Indoor Air Cartoon Journal, November 2019, Volume 2, #84

Prevention is better than cure. Risk assessment is essential to attaining the prevention of harm or disaster. Effective risk assessment is the first step towards the provision of control strategies that could be used to reduce exposure to indoor air pollution. The need for risk assessment should be of the highest priority if the indoor environment is occupied by the elderly because their body immune system is weak in neutralising the toxic effects of indoor air pollutants. So, what constitutes risk assessment?  Risk assessment is a function of the severity of a hazard and the likelihood of the exposed subject in succumbing to the harm caused by the hazard. See attached cartoons for more details on risk assessment analysis.

What physiological or psychological conditions, activities, or measures would aid the reduction of elderly people’s vulnerability? What conditions, activities, or measures would increase the elderly people’s vulnerability? When the elderly or other physiologically vulnerable people suffer from the harm of indoor air pollution, what conditions, activities, or measures could be adopted to mitigate further deepening of the vulnerability? What conditions, activities, or measures would deepen the vulnerability of the elderly after they have suffered from the harm caused by indoor air pollution? These are questions for built environment professionals to ponder about to reduce the risk of the elderly in the indoor environment surrounded by a harsh outdoor environment.

Do you want to know more about the vulnerability and risk of the elderly to harm caused by indoor air pollution? Read Filiberto et al. (2009), Medina-Ramon and Schwartz (2008), and Namdeo et al. (2011) papers.