Hospitals host vulnerable people with potentially enhanced sensitivity to air pollutants. We measured particulate matter (PM) including PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 with a portable device in a hospital, a nearby reference building, and ambient air in Shiraz, Iran. Indoor/outdoor (I/O) ratio values were calculated to infer on the origin of size-fractioned PM. The mean hospital indoor concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 (4.7 and 38.7 μg/m3, respectively) but not PM1 were higher than in the reference building and lower than in ambient air. The highest hospital PM10 mean concentrations were found in the radiotherapy ward (77.5 μg/m3) and radiology ward (70.4 μg/m3) while the lowest were found in the bone marrow transplantation (BMT) ward (18.5 μg/m3) and cardiac surgery ward (19.8 μg/m3). The highest PM2.5 concentrations were found in the radiology (8.7 μg/m3) and orthopaedic wards (7.7 μg/m3) while the lowest were found in the BMT ward (2.8 μg/m3) and cardiac surgery ward (2.8 μg/m3). The I/O ratios and the timing of peak concentrations during the day (7 a.m. to 4 p.m.) indicated the main roles of outdoor air and human activity on the indoor levels. These suggest the need for mechanical ventilation with PM control for a better indoor air quality (IAQ) in the hospital.
Keywords: Hospital; Indoor air quality; Iran; Particulate matter (PM).
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.