Case Study: Campus Based Air Monitoring and IAQ Management
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As a location where a vulnerable population group spends a great deal of time, school air should be monitored for long term health outcomes in students for the sake of future social costs and lifelong wellbeing.
The child and teenager student population are particularly vulnerable to air quality issues, especially in the long term as their bodies are still developing and negative impacts may persist into adulthood.
Air pollution negatively affects neurodevelopment and can lead to chronic diseases such as asthma. In addition, poor air quality can decrease concentration, lower attention span and negatively impact memory and learning, another long term impact on the school population.
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Examples of monitoring programs
In the United States Boston Public School District, a program of indoor air quality monitoring was launched in January 2022, covering 121 schools with over 4400 sensors in classrooms and offices, supplemented by 118 rooftop outdoor air quality sensors on school buildings. Which measure common pollutants including Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide and Particulate Matter.
In addition, the data is publicly available online, allowing stakeholders and the public to make data based decisions regarding air quality.
In the United Kingdom, the Schools’ Air quality Monitoring for Health and Education (SAMHE) program monitoring air ran for two years between 2022 and 2024, monitoring air quality in over 1300 schools. Another program specific to London was announced in October 2025, installing HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate) filters and air monitoring in over 200 schools in the city.
Research by the London city government found such filters can lower PM2.5 levels in classrooms by 27-68%, a figure consistent with other similar experiments.
UNICEF also supported a program to monitor air quality in 148 schools in Laos, using low cost sensors to ensure the program is robust and economical.
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The value of school air monitoring and purification
UNICEF estimates over 100 children under 5 in East Asia and Pacific lose their lives to air pollution related causes every day. While locally, the Hedley Environmental Index, managed by the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong estimates over 4.8 million air pollution doctor visits in 2024.
See the Hedley index here – https://hedleyindex.hku.hk/en/health-economic-loss
The Hedley index also notes its methodology is conservative and does not include unquantified health impacts beyond countable metrics such as deaths, hospital stays and doctors visits. The impact of pollution on the long term quality of life, health effects, educational outcomes and economic productivity of children and youth as future members of society is not calculated, but is likely to be larger than current figures show.
Monitoring of particulate matter and NO2 pollution can help to define and quantify exposure to the pollutants, giving school and health authorities the ability to avoid negative health impacts such as asthma and allergies in the school going population.
Short term impacts such as high levels of CO2 in busy classrooms reducing student energy levels in learning environments can also be found and improved with immediate behavioral changes such as opening windows by teachers and students with monitoring and data feedback.
Clean Air Network’s data monitoring program, which ran from 2022 to present and included monitoring of daycares, kindergarten, primary and secondary classrooms found such premises may have high levels of carbon dioxide from human activities and volatile organic compounds, possibly from whiteboard use.
As such, school monitoring is essential to understand the quality of air on campuses and for making improvements to the environment of students participating in the educational process.
Read more:
https://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-invests-ps27m-air-quality-filters-schools-clean-air-classrooms
https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/pollution-and-air-quality/school-filters-programme
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722069133