Document Type
Article
Disciplines
1.6 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 2. ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, 3. MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES
Abstract
As the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 pandemic has proceeded, ventilation has been recognized increasingly as an important tool in infection control. Many hospitals in Ireland and the UK do not have mechanical ventilation and depend on natural ventilation. The effectiveness of natural ventilation varies with atmospheric conditions and building design. In a challenge test of a legacy design ward, this study showed that portable air filtration significantly increased the clearance of pollutant aerosols of respirable size compared with natural ventilation, and reduced spatial variation in particle persistence. A combination of natural ventilation and portable air filtration is significantly more effective for particle clearance than either intervention alone.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2022.09.017
Recommended Citation
Fennelly, Mehael; Hellebust, S.; Wenger, J.; O'Connor, D.; Griffith, G.W.; Plant, B.J.; and Microbiome Institute, A.P.C., "Portable HEPA Filtration Successfully Augments Natural-Ventilation-Mediated Airborne Particle Clearance in a Legacy Design Hospital Ward" (2023). Articles. 139.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/scschcpsart/139
Funder
This manuscript emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland (Grant No. 20/COV/0281).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Included in
Other Engineering Commons, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Commons, Public Health Commons
Publication Details
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36198345/
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2022.09.017