Exploring the role of citizen science in indoor air quality monitoring and sustainable development

Abstract

The air we breathe contains what we need to live but it also contains pollutants with various health implications from short- and long-term exposure. While we understand the impact of air pollution in outdoor environments, the place where people spend up to 90% of their time is left unattended – that is, indoors. Studying indoor air quality is a challenge due to the ethical and high costs associated with large measuring devices. However, due to the development of low-cost indoor air quality monitoring devices, cloud-based services, and the portable new devices, indoor air becomes possible to study in detail. The challenge remains on how researchers can gather this data.

In the spirit of sustainability which considers societal and administrative perspectives, community based monitoring and citizen science become useful tools. Citizen science provides practises of collaborative projects, while community based monitoring in turn gives empowers citizens to make observations on their surroundings. Combined, these can help improve urban development and specifically fill the gap in indoor air quality research, while producing socially active and empowered communities to engage with policy. Collecting data directly from individual homes is important in understanding the variable factors influencing indoor air quality since this type of detail has been missed with previous studies modelling indoor environments.

This study follows the experiences of 17 participants in an Indoor Air Quality Pilot Project at Tampere University in 2024 lasting two and a half weeks. The participants were given AirGradient low-cost air quality monitoring devices to their homes, contributing to community based monitoring. Participatory practises were also implemented through two workshops: at the beginning and the end of the project. The workshops gave participants an overview of air quality matters, the research taking place during the project, and factors influencing their home environments. Through anonymous qualitative and quantitative questionnaires filled out by participants at the beginning and at the end of the project, this study explores how citizen science and community-based monitoring can enhance indoor air quality research and contribute to sustainable urban development.

The results of the questionnaires showed that participant motivations for joining the project were personal wellbeing and curiosity surrounding air pollution in their homes while some surprising findings they identified were on PM2.5 and CO2 readings. Key behavioural changes were also identified through the questionnaires, as participants reported increased interest in IAQ, policy regarding IAQ, and citizen science as a whole. Participants also stated feeling more empowered regarding their home environments and showed an increased familiarity with the central topics of IAQ between the beginning and end of the workshops and measurements. This familiarity spread to participant sentiments toward having their home IAQ data being uploaded to cloud services, and participants said they would be more comfortable with their data being used for similar projects in the future.

The behavioural changes can be attributed to the use of citizen science practises where participants are not simply involved to collect data but were actively engaged on the research topics. Through workshops, they were taught how to interpret device results which contributed to their learning, familiarity with topics, and sense of empowerment. These results impact the usability of community based monitoring in indoor air quality monitoring research and show how these methods impact the sustainability of future research in this challenging field. Previous modelling of indoor air quality relies on outdoor factors and general building specifications, which overlooks individual behaviour influences on indoor air quality. Community based monitoring therefore fills the gap by providing more detailed and qualitative data to be used in research of home environments.