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Problems with moulds/dampness in schools – Croatian review on Parma declaration commitments

The Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health (Parma, Italy, 2010) adopted the Declaration and the Commitment to Act containing the set of targets for the environment and health process. The aim of Declaration was to reduce the harm to children’s health from specific environmental factors. One of the commitments is to provide each child by 2020 with healthy indoor environment in child care facilities, kindergartens, schools and public recreational settings, implementing WHO’s indoor air quality guidelines. In accordance with the WHO Guidelines on Indoor Air Quality – Dampness and Mould, exposures to mould and dampness are associated with asthma, respiratory symptoms and infections, and general symptoms among children, and need to be eliminated. WHO has developed a standardized methodology for exposure assessment surveys in schools including mould and dampness inspections, monitoring of chemical air pollutants and assessment of ventilation rates in classrooms. A pilot project was implemented in two schools in Osijek, Croatia in April 2012 in order to test the methodology and Croatian language data collection tools. The results of pilot project demonstrated that exposure to mould and dampness was a serious problem in one of the inspected schools. Following the pilot project, Croatia implemented a national survey in schools in 2012-2014.

Parma Declaration, healthy indoor environment, mould, dampness problems, pilot project, special project

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