Identification of indoor air quality factors in Slovenian schools : national cross-sectional study

Galičič, An (author), Rožanec, Jan (author), Kukec, Andreja (author), Carli, Tanja (author), Medved, Sašo (author), Eržen, Ivan (author)

Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) in schools is associated with impacts on pupils’ health and learning performance. We aimed to identify the factors that affect IAQ in primary schools. The following objectives were set: (a) to develop a questionnaire to assess the prevalence of factors in primary schools, (b) to conduct content validity of the questionnaire, and (c) to assess the prevalence of factors that affect the IAQ in Slovenian primary schools. Based on the systematic literature review, we developed a new questionnaire to identify factors that affect the IAQ in primary schools and conducted its validation. The questionnaires were sent to all 454 Slovenian primary schools; the response rate was 78.19%. The results show that the most important outdoor factors were the school’s micro location and the distance from potential sources of pollution, particularly traffic. Among the indoor factors, we did not detect a pronounced dominating factor. Our study shows that the spatial location of schools is key to addressing the problem of IAQ in schools.

• Language: English
• Keywords: air quality factors, primary school, questionnaire, cross-sectional study
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering; MF - Faculty of Medicine
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: 16 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 11, iss. 13
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-168864
• UDC: 614
• ISSN on article: 2227-9717
• DOI: 10.3390/pr11030841
• COBISS.SI-ID: 146393347
• Publication date in RUL: 30.04.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Processes
• Shortened title: Processes
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2227-9717
• COBISS.SI-ID: 523353113

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: kakovost zraka, osnovne šole, anketa, presečna študija