Indoor Air Quality Tools

Empowering Residents

On average, Americans spend most of their time indoors, and vulnerable populations tend to spend even more time indoors. It’s important to empower people to recognize IAQ issues in their own homes and provide them with knowledge and tools to improve their home’s safety. This page contains resources that can be utilized to educate and empower communities to take action to address IAQ.

Healthy Home
Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America developed this interactive healthier home module and the Asthma-Friendly Home Checklist with steps to identify and reduce triggers. [url; AAFA]

Healthy Homes: What You Need to Know About Pests and Pesticides to Protect Your Family’s Health
The Boston Public Health Commission offers this informational guide to families and tenants for addressing pests using an accessible, integrated pest management approach as an alternative to pesticides. This guide includes tips such as removing pests’ food supply, cutting off water sources, sealing pests out, and erasing pests’ travel routes. The guide also includes printable instruction cards that highlight healthy-home approaches to addressing pests. [pdf; BPHC, 2006]

Wildfires and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) 
This webpage provides information for consumers needing to reduce indoor exposure to wildfire smoke at home. Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture of particles and gases; however, this webpage focuses on reducing exposure to the primary pollutant of public health concern, PM_2.5. [url; EPA, 2022]

Citizen Science 
This program from the Tennessee Department of Conservation and Energy enables citizens to send their home radon testing kits to the CDC as contributions to scientific research. The collected data helps to map out radon levels throughout the state. [url; State of Tennessee]

State and Tribal Indoor Radon Grants (SIRG) Program: A Fact Sheet for Tribes 
The Environmental Protection Agency published this resource for new and existing tribal grantees as well as regional tribal air coordinators. A Fact Sheet for Tribes outlines tribal eligibility, shares background on allowable costs for tribal radon programs, and provides examples of successful tribal radon projects. [pdf; EPA, 2022]

Do-It-Yourself Healthy Home Check-Up 
This resource from the American Lung Association gives homeowners a valuable tool for identifying indoor air quality concerns within their homes. [pdf; ALA, 2022]

Air and Healthy Homes 
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s (ANTHC) Air and Healthy Homes program “provides education and tools to help residents improve their home environment by improving indoor air quality and reducing indoor air pollutants.” Within this program, a tribal air quality program exists that has funded tribes to undertake air quality projects in rural tribal communities since 2011. Projects are encouraged to include creative ways to address air quality concerns. The award value varies between $5,000-$25,000. [url; ANTHC]

Burn Wise Program 
EPA’s Burn Wise program promotes the importance of burning the right wood, the right way, in the right appliance. This page provides resources for homeowners on such subjects as wood-burning appliances, recreational fires, and the impacts of wood smoke on resident health. [url; EPA, 2023]

Code Comparison Tool 
The NCHH Code Comparison Tool gives communities the opportunity to compare their current housing/property maintenance code to the National Healthy Housing Standard and the International Property Maintenance Code. [url; NCHH]

Alliance for Green Heat 
Alliance for Green Heat’s site is a great tool for anyone seeking to address issues with their residential heating systems. Available on the site is user-friendly information about available low-carbon, renewable residential heating technology, relevant federal and state policy, tax credits and incentives, various educational materials, and a newsletter. [url; AGH]

 

Latest page update: March 7, 2023.