Feeling unwell again? Perhaps your building is at fault.

Have you noticed that you often feel fatigued or find it hard to focus while at work? In “Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Can Make You Sick — or Keep You Well,” authorities in public health and business from Harvard, Joseph Allen and John Macomber, examine the impact of our environments—such as homes, workplaces, and schools—on our mental and physical health, our concentration, and our ability to solve problems. Allen assisted us in creating the quiz below, drawing from his investigations into indoor air quality.

Step 1 of 10

10%

1. What proportion of their lives do Americans typically spend indoors?

80%

65%

90%

75%

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2. Which workplace modification enhanced employees’ cognitive abilities in a 2015 Harvard investigation?

Transition to open office design

Enhancing air flow in the building

Installation of water filtration systems in the kitchen

3. Changes to building air ventilation standards occurred in the 1970s, primarily aiming to:

Diminishing asthma episodes

Boosting cognitive abilities

Minimizing complaints regarding body scents (“bioeffluents”)

Averting the spread of influenza

4. Where are you most likely to inhale outdoor air contamination?

Outdoors

Indoors

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5. If you reside in an apartment, what portion of the indoor air originates from your neighbor’s unit?

0%

1%

9%

30%

6. How many possibilities can you identify to enhance this building’s healthiness?

3

5

More than 10

7. What percentage of the air you inhale indoors just exited the lungs of others in the vicinity?

1-3%

3% or above

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8. Steps you can take to diminish the transmission of infectious ailments indoors:

Introduce more outdoor air

Enhance the filtration level

Utilize portable air purifiers with HEPA filters

All of the above options

9. Dust is hormonally reactive. True or false?

True

False

10. Out of the over 80,000 chemicals accessible for trade, how many have been prohibited by the EPA since 1976?

200

6

33

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