The average American spends 90% of his or her time indoors, making the quality of indoor air especially important. Many pollutants are found in much higher concentrations indoors because of the limited air space and inadequate ventilation. Building materials, household products, combustion appliances and microbial growth are among the sources of indoor air pollution. 

The EPA Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Information Clearinghouse is a central source of information on indoor air quality and indoor air pollution. Information specialists are available to answer toll-free calls to (800) 438-4318 during business hours, and publications on various aspects of indoor air quality for homes and businesses are available online. EPA also offers an Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools website and a site that focuses specifically on school design for good indoor air quality.

Healthy Indoor Air for America's Homes is a program of EPA's Indoor Environments Division, Montana State University Extension Service, and USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service. The site includes instructional modules from a complete online training manual on IAQ. The site also includes information for homeowners on specific indoor pollutants.

The Health House program offers information on residential indoor air quality, including an online IAQ checklist that can be used to evaluate home air quality, and detailed information on specific pollutants.

The Building and Fire Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Testing offers CONTAMW 2.0, a multizone indoor air quality and ventilation analysis computer program designed to predict airflows, contaminant concentrations and personal exposures. The site features a program demo and download function.

Aerias.org is promoting better health through indoor air quality awareness. The website provides resources related to the connection between indoor air quality and human health, including news headlines, topical references, and indoor air quality information for homes, schools, and workplaces.

American Indoor Air Quality Council, a nonprofit professional association, promotes awareness, education, and certification in the field of Indoor Air Quality through learning, sharing, and networking.

The Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) is a nonprofit, multi-disciplined organization, dedicated to promoting the exchange of indoor environmental information, through education and research, for the safety and well being of the general public.

American Lung Association provides many online documents on specific ways to reduce indoor air pollution in homes, workplaces, and schools.

Building Air Quality Action Plan and Building Air Quality: A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers are publications from EPA and NIOSH that are available online. They address IAQ for larger-scale commercial and institutional buildings. NIOSH also offers additional Indoor Environmental Quality references.

California Indoor Air Quality Program offers online info sheets with related links, on topics such as mold, radon, indoor ozone, healthy homes and healthy schools.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes available a number of online publications related to indoor air quality, addressing topics such as paint, carpet, carbon monoxide, asbestos, and formaldehyde. Documents are in HTML or PDF format, or both.

The Inside Story:  A Guide to Indoor Air Quality describes sources of air pollution in the home and office, corrective strategies, and specific measures for reducing pollutant levels. A 1995 publication from the EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Moisture and Air: Problems and Remedies is an online reference from CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) helps the reader find typical signs of moisture and air quality problems in a house, identify probable causes, and propose solutions.

National Safety Council has an Environmental Health Center with an Indoor Air Program that provides online fact sheets and educational materials on pollutants and indoor air quality.

Last updated: January 5, 2004

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