Katharina Buczek
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), ninety-nine percent of the population is breathing in air that contains high levels of pollutants.
Moreover, 3.2 million people die every year due to indoor air pollution, while 4.2 million people die due to outdoor air pollution.
In response to growing research around the health impacts of inhaling polluted air, researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada recently studied the benefits of using indoor air filters.
Particularly how using these filters during pregnancy might prevent any adverse brain development due to air pollution exposure.
The study began in 2014 and included five hundred and forty pregnant women from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia– one of the top-ranked cities for worst air quality in the world.
Each woman was under eighteen weeks pregnant, did not smoke, and had not previously used air filtration devices in the home.
The researchers first randomly assigned each woman to either the air filter or control groups.
Women in the air filter group were provided with one to two HEPA filter air cleaners and were told to continuously run the filters throughout their entire pregnancy.
Then, following the birth of their children, all of the air filters were removed.
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