Sub-theme: Active ageing and chronic pulmonary disease GERIA PROJECT PRELIMINARY STUDY ON INDOOR AIR QUALITY AND HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN ELDERLY CARE CENTERS

Background: The age of the European population is rising and the percentage of adults aged 65 years and older is projected to increase from 16% in 2000 to 20% in 2020. It has been estimated that older persons spend about 19-20 hours per day indoor. In this sense, older persons may be particularly at risk of detrimental effects from pollutants, even at low concentrations due to their common reduced immunological defense and multiple underlying chronic diseases. Objectives: Six Porto urban area elderly care centers (ECCs), housing a total of 425 older persons, were studied for building indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort (TC) assessment in both seasons. This paper presents the first IAQ and TC pilot study results in 36 ECCs rooms of a wider ongoing study about respiratory health and related quality of life. Results: The study areas were all natural ventilated with IAQ winter indoor concentrations within the Portuguese reference values. However, 40% of the participants were dissatisfied with indoor thermal conditions, rating it ‘slightly cool’. Summer season show a lower rate of dissatisfied persons (8%), but fungal concentrations exceeded reference levels (> 500 CFU/m3). There were significant differences between seasons on PPD (P = 0.013) and PMV (P < 0.05) indexes. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study in Portugal to assess effects of indoor air contaminants on health status and quality of life in older persons living in ECCs. Although the preliminary results suggest that indoor concentrations of most parameters were within reference values, the results highlight several issues, including the need to improve the balance between IAQ and thermal comfort in ECCs.