Bedroom ventilation: Review of existing evidence and current standards

Abstract

Sleep is essential for our health and well-being. Some research suggests that air quality influences sleep quality in bedrooms, but the evidence is limited. Research, until now, has focused on how indoor air quality affects health, comfort, and cognitive performance during waking hours. Less information is available on the levels of indoor air quality and ventilation in bedrooms, or on their consequences for sleep quality and next-day performance. This paper addresses the former by reviewing research published in peer-reviewed journals in this millennium. Bedroom ventilation has been chosen as a specific focus of this review paper, which also includes a review of selected international standards for bedroom ventilation. Arising out of this review and a comparison of field data with CO2 and ventilation benchmarks from widely adopted international standards, an attempt is made to generalize the level of bedroom ventilation that exists in practice in residential dwellings and apartments across different seasons and different parts of the world. Based on a limited number of studies dealing with the impact of bedroom ventilation on sleep quality, an attempt is also made to associate measured field data with its potential impact on sleep quality.