Workplace exposure monitoring for traffic pollution (PM2.5) in hospitals

Air Purifiers

Are you concerned about the levels of traffic fumes entering particular areas of your hospital? Would you like to introduce air purifiers to remove the fume particulate, but don’t know how to establish the business case?

Our workplace monitoring is a two-staged approach that enables us to assess the effects of traffic pollution on your hospital’s indoor air quality.

Stage 1 – We use specialist equipment to monitor the levels of PM2.5 vehicle particulate in the target area during peak traffic times

Stage 2 – We set up our stand-alone Blueair HealthProtect Air Purifier in the target area, to show you how it can remove these PM2.5 particles quickly and effectively.

Let’s have a look in more detail at each stage.

Stage 1 – Monitoring

Once you have identified the areas of the hospital that you are concerned about, we will carry out air quality monitoring in those locations during peak traffic times. This will ensure that we can record the worst levels of traffic pollution ingress affecting those areas during the day.

We will use a Personal Dust Monitor to measure and log concentrations of PM2.5 in real time, approximately every second. We will do this for a period of time in each specified location to identify existing levels of this particulate.

In heavy public areas, e.g. restaurants, we recommend that spot monitoring is carried out at 5 points within that area, including the centre of the room and its four corners. This will provide valuable information about the exposure of both staff members and the public to PM2.5 particulate.

Using a personal dust monitor, we will also extract samples from the breathing zone of the staff members involved in the study and take notes so that key events during the monitoring period can be correlated with peak levels of PM2.5 particulate, wherever possible.

Optional Stage 2 – Air Purification

Once we have a record of the levels of PM2.5 in a specified location, you can opt to have one of our Blueair HealthProtect air purifiers in that location. We will then monitor the air quality again, to see how much of the dangerous particulate has been removed in the target area by the air purifier.

On completion of the on-site monitoring and the resulting analysis, we will provide you with a comprehensive report containing working methods and monitoring results, together with any recommendations.

Interested in our monitoring service for traffic pollution (PM2.5)?

Whether air quality in your hospital is the remit of your Ventilation Group, Health & Safety team, or Estates and Facilities managers, our traffic pollution monitoring service will ensure you can build a sound business case for investing in our Blueair HealthProtect air purification.

If you would like to talk to us about monitoring for your hospital, please feel free to contact us on 0333 015 4345 or email us at info@cairntechnology.com.

In Great Britain, ‘248 hospitals are in areas with average levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that are above the limit recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (10μg/m3 for the annual average).’

Toxic Air at the Door of the NHS, British Lung Foundation Report 2018

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