The home is where the heart is, but many of the materials in our homes often come with dangerous health effects. One of the main culprits for the onset of respiratory diseases in your home is your air quality.
If you don’t replace your air filter often enough, airborne pathogens can build up and wreak havoc on your lungs and nose. With that in mind, here are the health effects of poor indoor air quality.
The Short-Term Effects of Poor Indoor Air Quality
The severity of damage that results from exposure to air pollution can vary based on a few different criteria. Some of these components include how long you exposed yourself to it, which types of pathogens you exposed yourself to, and how concentrated they are in the air.
If the air quality is low enough, you can experience adverse health effects immediately upon exposure to these impurities. The short-term effects of poor indoor air quality include headaches, nausea, mental impairments, dizziness, light-headedness, and throat, nose, eye, and lung irritation. Those prone to respiratory diseases such as asthma or allergies might find it hard to breathe in an area with poor air quality.
Long Term Ailments That Result From Low-Quality Air
Usually, if you become exposed to indoor air pollution, the negative health effects dissipate if you stay away from that environment for long enough. However, repeated exposure might lead to long-term effects, and the severity of these health ailments will increase significantly.
For example, you could experience changes in mood, cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory illness, or other conditions. Exposure to air pollution can also lead to congenital disabilities in newborn babies, which can cause problems in their development later on.
How Your HVAC System Can Prevent These Outcomes
When your HVAC system is overloaded, it can’t remove impurities from the air circulating inside your home as effectively as it should. If you don’t change the air filter in your system as often as you should, dust and dirt particles build up on your filter, which overloads your HVAC system. By searching for HVAC filters online or stopping by your local hardware store, you can prevent the onset of a respiratory ailment before it occurs.
Overall, your health is the most important thing to consider for being comfortable where you live. Now that you understand the health effects of poor indoor air quality, you can make the right decisions for designing and maintaining your home.
