Affiliations 

  • 1 National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
MyJurnal

Abstract

Indoor air quality is a term which refers to the air quality in and around buildings and structures, in which it
is related to the health and comfort of those who are in the building. The study aims to identify the relationship
between environmental factors with microbe growth by investigating the concentration of airborne bacteria and
fungi at National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and to determine whether indoor bacteria and
fungi concentration were associated with environmental factors such as temperature relative humidity and carbon
dioxide concentration. This research was conducted concurrently with indoor air quality sampling as per requirement
under the Malaysian Code of Practice of Indoor Air Quality (COP IAQ). The COP IAQ requires minimum of one
sample to be taken from each area. If an area consists of a few separated rooms, each room is sampled and measured
independently. Also this approach was used to determine whether there is a difference of indoor bacteria and fungi
in different microenvironments. Results show that there is a significant correlation between humidity and bacteria
concentration and fungi concentration; and between temperature and bacteria concentration. However, there is no
significant correlation between temperature and fungi concentration. This study has also established significant
difference on bacteria concentration and fungi concentration between microenvironments.