The Adverse Associations of Classrooms’ Indoor Air Quality and Thermal Comfort Conditions on Students’ Illness Related Absenteeism between Heating and Non-Heating Seasons—A Pilot Study

Shihan Deng, Bin Zou and Josephine Lau
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Shihan Deng: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650050, China
Bin Zou: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650050, China
Josephine Lau: Scott-Campus/Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction/College of Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68128, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-10

Abstract: (1) The association of the indoor environmental conditions in classrooms with illness-related absenteeism (IRA) was not well investigated. In addition, studying the association between heating and non-heating seasons were very limited; (2) To fill this knowledge gap, a research team collected various indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort conditions (TC) of 85 elementary classrooms in two school districts from the Midwestern United States throughout an academic year; in total, 255 classroom visits were performed. A negative binomial regression model was implied to associate the classroom’s IAQ and TC with IRA, separating for heating and non-heating seasons; (3) During non-heating season, a 3% increase of IRA was estimated with 1,000,000-counts/L increase of particles that had a diameter less than 2.5 ?m (PN2.5); during the heating season, a 3% increase of IRA were expected with 100 ppm increase of room averaged CO 2 concentration; and (4) These results suggested that the IAQ and TC factors could associated with IRA differently between heating and non-heating seasons.

Keywords: absence rate; attendance; seasonal variation; the Midwest U.S. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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