Indoor Air Quality in Healthcare Facilities (Springerbriefs in Public Health)

Description

This interdisciplinary guide offers background, research findings, and practical strategies for assessing and improving air quality in hospitals and other healthcare settings. Positing good air quality as critical to patient and staff well-being, it identifies disease-carryingmicrobes, pollutants, and other airborne toxins and their health risks, and provides localized interventions for reducing transmission of pathogens. Effective large-scale approaches to air quality control are also outlined, from green building materials to hygienic HVAC and air treatment practices. Its thoroughness of coverage makes this book a vital resource for professionals involved in every aspect of health service facilities, from planning and construction to maintenance and management.

Among the topics covered:

• Existingguidelines in indoor air quality: the case study of hospital environments
• Hospital environments and epidemiology of healthcare-associatedinfections
• Analysis of microorganisms in hospital environments and potentialrisks
• Legionellaindoor air contamination in healthcareenvironments
• HVAC systemdesign in healthcarefacilities and control of aerosol contaminants
• Assessment of indoor air quality in inpatientwards

Indoor Air Quality in Healthcare Facilities imparts up-to-date expertise to a variety of professional readers, including hospitals' technical and management departments, healthcare facilities' chief medical officers, hospital planners, sport and thermal building designers, public health departments, and students of universities and schools of hygiene. 

Stefano Capolongo, PhD, is an architect with a PhD in Public Health. He is associate professor at Politecnico di Milano and professor at the School of Specialization of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine at University of Milan and University of Parma. Prof. Arch.Capolongo is author of more than 200 scientific publications, and conducts research and scientific collaboration in the design for themes like building hygiene, environmental sustainability, and social-health architecture.

Gaetano Settimo, PhD, is researcher at Istituto Superiore di Sanità in the Department of the Environment and Primary Prevention in Rome, Italy.

Marco Gola is an architect and PhD candidate at Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy. He specializes in architecture for sustainability, hospital planning, and construction.