ABSTRACT
The best strategy to reduce exposure to contaminants is to locate housing away from industrial areas, office workers away from high polluting office equipment and to consult with landscape architects to reduce high pollenating vegetation within areas where children, the elderly and the immune-compromised inhabit. Buildings are likely to have high radon levels in areas where radon is found at high levels in soils. Prevention is tied to proactive environmental policy, a good site analysis, awareness of what goes into building products and specifying the most efficient, effective and environmentally sustaining products possible. Asbestos can be found in many existing buildings, in the form of siding, tiles, plumbing pipe wrap, roofing and insulation. The people who live or work in the buildings where there are many sources of Volatile Organic Compounds are at risk for many health conditions. Strategies to eliminate pests from a building should follow the Integrated Pest Management approach.
