Dear Colleagues,

People spend 90% of their time indoors and more than 20 hours a day indoors generally. The indoor environment includes residential (85%), institutional or commercial (10%), and multi-use buildings (residential and non-residential) (5%). Some locations outside a private residential (such as restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, barber shops, subways, workplaces, schools, etc.) are considered public places.

Indoor health impacts, including harmful chemicals, particles, radon, mold, and bacteria, are major contributors to health risks. The sources in the residential environment include emissions from cooking and heating appliances, renovation, tobacco smoke, building materials, use of pesticides, humid climate, etc.

Similarly to the residential buildings, there are significant features of public places, including high population flow, complex healthy and non-healthy individuals, with inter-infection risks. Other than typical SVOCs and particles, diverse microbes, including bacteria, fungi, and even viruses, are also important health issues in public places. During the COVID-19 epidemic, clustered outbreaks occurred frequently in residential and public places. Many countries have promoted healthy buildings and hygiene measures, such as enhanced ventilation, cleaning, and reasonable disinfection. It is still an urgent problem of how to coordinate ventilation efficiency and the energy consumption in actual living conditions.

It is believed that indoor air pollution in residences and public places is more harmful than outdoor air pollution. However, data for indoor air status have not been assessed yet, especially in public places, in most countries. It is difficult to estimate the health impact of indoor harmful impactors because representative exposure data are scarce. What is the leading indoor pollutants in residential environments and public places around the world? Have major indoor pollutants changed during the last decades? What is the disease burden from emerging and major pollutants? What are the optimal parameters to reduce indoor pollution in public places during infectious diseases epidemic? These are some of the technical questions to be answered.

We welcome submissions on pollution characterization, priority pollutants recognition, exposure evaluation, and health risk assessments in residents and public places on regional, national, and global studies. The mission of this collection is to find articles on health-related factors and promising health promotion mechanism in indoor environment. Manuscripts (original research, commentary, viewpoints, and reviews) are invited, but are not limited to the following topics:

• Characterization of indoor pollutants and factors with potential health impact.
• Indoor source appointment of leading pollutants and diverse factors.
• Exposure and health risk of emerging residential pollutants in residents and public places.
• Estimation of disease burden of indoor pollutants at national and regional levels.
• Building design renovation and ventilation efficiency promotion for healthy indoor living.

Prof. Dr. Xianliang Wang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• indoor
• resident
• public places
• heavy metals
• VOCs
• SVOCs
• indoor microbes
• levels
• characterization
• source appointment
• exposure
• health risk
• disease burden
• pollution control
• healthy building
• healthy living
• children health
• risk minimization