At the request of a union local, an investigation of the environmental conditions in public school classrooms and their associations with teachers' reports of symptoms was conducted. Using a participatory action research methodology, the participating teachers collected most of the data used in this cross-sectional epidemiologic investigation through self-administered questionnaires. Additional data were provided by industrial hygiene classroom evaluations. Five indoor environmental conditions and five groups of symptoms were investigated. Utilizing analyses of variance, association between all conditions and group of symptoms were evaluated. Of the twenty-five associations assessed, seven were found to be statistically significant at a=0.05. Of particular interest was the association between classroom cleanliness and three symptom groups: allergy symptoms, sick building syndrome symptoms, and non-allergy sick building syndrome symptoms. In all three cases a statistically significant trend was found for a greater percentage of teachers to report symptoms in "dirtier" classrooms. In addition, potential confounders and effect modifiers were evaluated. The most important of these was teacher satisfaction with the classroom, which, when controlled for through stratification, reduced the odds ratios. The presentation of this investigation will provide an overview of the participatory methodology used, the classroom and health evaluation tools developed by the teachers, as well as the results of the epidemiologic investigation.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to: - list aspects of indoor environments that impact health
Keywords: Occupational Health, Indoor Environment
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.