Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation Study (BASE) as a Potential Resource Tool for Public Health Officials and Policy Makers

Air inside public and commercial office buildings contains a wide variety of pollutants that can build up and affect the health of people working there. Indoor air problems can affect the health of and significantly reduce the productivity of office workers. Early research of indoor air quality (IAQ) in office buildings focused on evaluating problem buildings where occupants had significant complaints about the IAQ. However, there was no information available on what is typical for buildings with regards to contaminant levels or occupant perceptions to use as a point of comparison. Therefore, the US Environmental Protection Agency's Indoor Environments Division collected indoor air quality data from randomly selected US office buildings across the country as part of the Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation (BASE) study. Information collected in BASE can be used as inputs for air quality models, testing factors for scenarios of emergency preparedness or emergency response, or for direct comparison of typical background levels to levels in a problem area. For example, if a contaminant such as formaldehyde or a perceived symptom such as headaches is suspected to be at a high level in a complaint building it could be evaluated in comparison to average or range concentrations or symptoms found in the typical buildings studied as part of BASE. This report will introduce BASE and discuss ways it is being used by building professionals and the public health community.