Abstract |
Recent studies have shown that the traditional practice of monitoring outdoor (ambient) air quality leads to little information regarding the exposures of people in indoor surroundings. Consequently, EPA has begun a series of studies to determine the air pollution exposures people are subjected to in their daily non-outdoor activities at home, in traffic, and at work. The paper describes the factors that should be considered in developing a survey to describe the air pollution exposures that people experience in their home environment. There is little previous experience in survey design for indoor air pollution exposure per se. However, the field of survey design for measurement of people's attitudes, preferences, and attributes is well developed. An extensive literature exists which describes general sampling techniques for performing these surveys. Some types of surveys, such as health care surveys or business surveys, are best addressed by particular types of survey designs. For example, the design issues for health care surveys are discussed in detail by Cox and Cohen. The paper discusses the design considerations that make indoor air exposure surveys, where human subjects are recruited either to carry personal monitors or to allow monitoring in their homes, different from the traditional surveys of opinions and attitudes. |