domains: research, standards, technology, operations, signals, and advocacy
IAQng field map
A field map of the people and systems making indoor air governable.
The clean indoor air movement is not one discipline. It is aerosol science, building standards, public health, environmental engineering, facility operations, infection prevention, cleaning and maintenance, sensors, advocacy, and community data trying to become one practical operating language.
IAQng is a SpaceBot-led editorial and research initiative, but this map points outward. It exists to credit the work already happening, make the field easier to navigate, and connect public evidence to practical room-health decisions.
How to read this
The map is organized by responsibility, not by buzzword.
A useful map should help a facility leader, researcher, operator, or advocate know where to start. Who is producing the evidence? Which standards are changing practice? Which technologies actually alter room conditions? Who turns plans into daily work? Which outside signals change the posture of a building? Who is pushing the public expectation forward?
starting points for researchers, institutions, guidance, tools, and organizations
a living source map built for nominations, corrections, interviews, and updates
01 / Evidence Healthy buildings, aerosol science, and exposure research.
02 / Rules Standards, guidance, and the operating floor for buildings.
03 / Tools Ventilation, filtration, air cleaning, controls, and sensors.
04 / Practice Facilities, EVS, infection prevention, safety, and service work.
05 / Context Room use, outdoor air, community health, and wastewater signals.
06 / Demand Public education, school-air work, access, and accountability.
01 / Research
Follow the people making room risk visible.
This track is for researchers and institutions that changed the vocabulary: infectious aerosols, source strength, ventilation, filtration, deposition, inactivation, occupancy, exposure, and healthy buildings.
Open research dossierHarvard Healthy Buildings / Joseph G. Allen
Important because it translates building science into public-health, business, school, workplace, and policy language.
QUT International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health / Lidia Morawska
A WHO Collaborating Centre and one of the central institutional homes for air quality, ultrafine particles, and airborne infection work.
Virginia Tech / Linsey Marr
Connects aerosol physics, virus transport, masks, schools, ventilation, and real-room exposure questions.
University of Maryland PHAB Lab / Donald Milton
Tracks exhaled particles, respiratory infection, sampling, occupational health, influenza, and COVID-19 transmission questions.
University of Colorado Boulder / Shelly Miller
Bridges schools, ventilation, filtration, germicidal ultraviolet, and practical mitigation in shared indoor environments.
International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate
A multidisciplinary scientific organization connecting IAQ, indoor climate, measurement, health sciences, design, construction, operation, and maintenance.
02 / Standards
Track when guidance turns into an operating floor.
Standards matter because they turn concern into design targets, maintenance expectations, readiness plans, procurement language, and accountability.
Open standards dossierASHRAE Standard 241
Introduces infection risk management mode, equivalent clean airflow rate, filtration and air-cleaning requirements, planning, commissioning, and building readiness.
ASHRAE Standards 62.1 and 62.2
The long-running standards for ventilation system design and acceptable indoor air quality in commercial and residential settings.
ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170
Important for healthcare ventilation requirements where infection control, pressure relationships, and specialized rooms shape practice.
CDC/NIOSH Aim for 5
A practical workplace target for five or more air changes per hour when possible, combining ventilation, filtration, and air cleaning as equivalent clean air.
EPA Clean Air in Buildings Challenge
Moves IAQ from theory into planning, HVAC inspection, ventilation, filtration, and building-owner action.
WHO airborne pathogen terminology
Useful because shared language affects guidance, public understanding, and cross-disciplinary agreement after COVID-19 exposed terminology gaps.
03 / Technology
Separate tools that change exposure from tools that only look impressive.
The useful question is not whether a product sounds futuristic. It is what it removes, dilutes, inactivates, detects, or controls, under what room conditions, with what safety, maintenance, and verification requirements.
Open technology dossierCDC/NIOSH ventilation resources
Frames ventilation broadly: outdoor air, dilution, filtration, in-room cleaners, and germicidal ultraviolet as layered mitigation.
EPA HEPA guidance
A baseline source for what HEPA means and why fine-particle removal matters in practical air-cleaning conversations.
EPA guide to air cleaners
Useful for CADR, filter replacement, room sizing, and the warning that filtration supplements source control and ventilation.
CDC/NIOSH germicidal ultraviolet overview
A technology track worth following carefully because design, installation, maintenance, safety, and commissioning matter enormously.
Corsi-Rosenthal Box resources
A practical example of field-built filtration becoming public education, school action, and community resilience.
AHAM Verifide CADR directory
A useful purchasing reference when comparing air cleaner performance claims against tested clean air delivery rates.
04 / Operations
The field only matters if someone can act on Monday morning.
Operations is where standards, air systems, cleaning, inspection, maintenance, infection prevention, safety, and documentation become actual room readiness. This is not a side story. It is where risk reduction either happens or drifts.
Open operations dossierInternational Facility Management Association
Represents the people responsible for keeping buildings functional, serviceable, safe, and aligned with organizational needs.
APPA
Important for schools, colleges, and universities where facilities, learning environments, deferred maintenance, and health intersect.
Association for the Health Care Environment
Connects environmental services to healthcare quality, infection prevention, patient experience, and disciplined service practice.
American Society for Health Care Engineering
A key standards and operations community for healthcare facilities, infrastructure, compliance, resilience, and safety.
AIHA
Brings occupational and environmental health expertise into assessment, exposure, risk communication, and control strategies.
ISSA / GBAC STAR
Relevant when cleaning, disinfection, outbreak response, documentation, training, and facility credibility need a shared operating frame.
05 / Signals
Room decisions need context beyond the room.
Indoor risk is shaped by room size, density, activity, air systems, outdoor air, humidity, wildfire smoke, community respiratory trends, and service history. The point is not to diagnose people. The point is to choose a smarter building posture.
Open signals dossierOccupancy, density, dwell time, and activity
The same IAQ reading can mean different things in an empty lobby, crowded classroom, waiting room, restroom, gym, or break room.
Talking, respiratory activity, and movement
Human activity changes source strength and exposure potential. These signals need privacy guardrails and should be used for room-level operations, not personal surveillance.
AirNow, wildfire smoke, and outdoor AQI
Outdoor air can be the solution or the problem. Wildfire season, ozone, and PM2.5 can change ventilation and filtration strategy.
CDC National Wastewater Surveillance System
Community viral trends can help buildings shift posture during surges, but licensing, coverage, privacy, and interpretation all need care.
CDC respiratory virus activity levels
A useful context layer for risk communication and seasonal response planning, especially when paired with local room conditions.
What was inspected, cleaned, repaired, or changed?
The record of action matters: filter status, moisture events, odor complaints, dust buildup, ventilation faults, cleaning, and follow-up verification.
06 / Advocacy
The next standard of care will also be pushed from the outside.
Public education and advocacy make the invisible visible. They give parents, workers, patients, disabled people, teachers, operators, and community groups a language for asking what a room is doing to protect them.
Open advocacy dossierClean Air Club
A model for event-level clean-air support, public education, and making safer shared spaces feel practical rather than abstract.
Corsi-Rosenthal Foundation
Turns simple filtration into public-health literacy, school/community action, and a visible demonstration that air can be improved.
EPA IAQ Tools for Schools
School IAQ is often where parents, teachers, facilities, asthma, maintenance, ventilation, and public accountability meet.
Transparency, posted targets, and public-building standards
People engage when they can see whether a space has a plan: clean-air targets, filter status, ventilation posture, and who owns follow-up.
Who gets access to clean indoor air?
The movement should not only improve premium offices. Schools, clinics, shelters, long-term care, public venues, and high-risk communities belong in the map.
Feature the people doing the work
IAQng should celebrate researchers, operators, nonprofits, advocates, and standards contributors in ways they are proud to share.
Editorial guardrails
How the map stays useful instead of becoming a vendor directory.
Credit the field.
Name researchers, nonprofits, standards bodies, operators, and public agencies directly, with links to their work.
Separate evidence from promotion.
Use SpaceBot's point of view honestly, but keep the map pointed outward and avoid turning every section into a product claim.
Ask operational questions.
For every technology or signal: what changes, who acts, what is verified, what maintenance is required, and what could go wrong?
Respect privacy and uncertainty.
Behavior and community signals should support room-level decisions, not personal surveillance, diagnosis, or false precision.
Field map sources
Starter source base for checking and expanding the map.
Research and institutions
- Harvard Healthy Buildings Program
- Harvard Healthy Buildings: Mandating Indoor Air Quality for Public Buildings
- QUT International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health
- International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate
- Science/PubMed: Mandating indoor air quality for public buildings
- Science/PubMed: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection