What to Do if You Suspect a Problem

What to Do if You Suspect a Problem

If you or others at your office are experiencing health or comfort problems that you suspect may be caused by indoor air pollution, you can do the following:

• Talk with other workers, your supervisor, and union representatives to see if the problems are being experienced by others and urge that a record of reported health complaints be kept by management, if one has not already been established.
• Talk with your own physician and report your problems to the company physician, nurse, or health and safety officer.
• Call your state or local health department or air pollution control agency to talk over the symptoms and possible causes.
• You can encourage building management to follow guidance in EPA's IAQ Building Education and Assessment Model (I-BEAM) (www.epa.gov/iaq/largebldgs/ibeam_page.htm). I-BEAM updates and expands EPA's existing Building Air Quality guidance and is designed to be comprehensive state-of-the-art guidance for managing IAQ in commercial buildings. This guidance was designed to be used by building professionals and others interested in indoor air quality in commercial buildings. I-BEAM contains text, animation/visual, and interactive/calculation components that can be used to perform a number of diverse tasks. You can also encourage building management to follow guidance in EPA and NIOSH's Building Air Quality: A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers (www.epa.gov/iaq/largebldgs/baqtoc.html ) (The BAQ is available here as PDF files which can be downloaded and viewed individually or as a single file with all of the PDF files). To obtain the loose leaf format version of the Building Air Quality, complete with appendices, an index, and a full set of useful forms, and the, Building Air Quality Action Plan (www.epa.gov/iaq/largebldgs/actionpl.html) (The BAQ Action Plan is available in HTML and PDF formats.), order GPO Stock # 055-000-00602-4, for $28, contact the: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954, or call (202) 512-1800, fax (202) 512-2250.
• Obtain a copy of "An Office Building Occupant's Guide to Indoor Air Quality" (www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/occupgd.html), EPA-402-K-97-003, October 1997 from IAQ INFO at 1-800-438-4318.
• Frequently, indoor air quality problems in large commercial buildings cannot be effectively identified or remedied without a comprehensive building investigation. These investigations may start with written questionnaires and telephone consultations in which building investigators assess the history of occupant symptoms and building operation procedures. In some cases, these inquiries may quickly uncover the problem and on-site visits are unnecessary.
• More often, however, investigators will need to come to the building to conduct personal interviews with occupants, to look for possible sources of the problems, and to inspect the design and operation of the ventilation system and other building features. Because taking measurements of pollutants at the very low levels often found in office buildings is expensive and may not yield information readily useful in identifying problem sources, investigators may not take many measurements. The process of solving indoor air quality problems that result in health and comfort complaints can be a slow one, involving several trial solutions before successful remedial actions are identified.
• If a professional company is hired to conduct a building investigation, select a company on the basis of its experience in identifying and solving indoor air quality problems in non-industrial buildings.
• Work with others to establish a smoking policy that eliminates involuntary nonsmoker exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.
• Call the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for information on obtaining a health hazard evaluation of your office (800-35NIOSH), or contact the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, (202) 219-8151.

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