Technologies designed to make social interactions safer in indoor spaces are not effective in the real world, according to research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The team studied technologies including air filtration, germicidal lights, and ionizers. They looked at available evidence but found little to support hopes that these technologies can make air safe from respiratory or gastrointestinal infections. Results of the study are published in Preventive Medicine.
“Air cleaners are designed to filter pollutants or contaminants out of the air that passes through them,” says professor Paul Hunter, MD, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, in a release. “When the COVID pandemic hit, many large companies and governments, including the NHS, the British military, and New York City and regional German governments, investigated installing this type of technology in a bid to reduce airborne virus particles in buildings and small spaces. But air treatment technologies can be expensive. So it’s reasonable to weigh up the benefits against costs and to understand the current capabilities of such technologies.”
The research team studied evidence about whether air cleaning technologies make people safe from catching airborne respiratory or gastrointestinal infections.
They analyzed evidence about microbial infections or symptoms in people exposed or not to air treatment technologies in 32 studies, all conducted in real-world settings like schools or care homes. So far none of the studies on air treatment started during the COVID era have been published, according to the researchers.
“The kinds of technologies that we considered included filtration, germicidal lights, ionizers, and any other way of safely removing viruses or deactivating them in breathable air. In short, we found no strong evidence that air treatment technologies are likely to protect people in real-world settings,” says lead researcher Julii Brainard, PhD, also from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, in a release. “There is a lot of existing evidence that environmental and surface contamination can be reduced by several air treatment strategies, especially germicidal lights and high-efficiency particulate air filtration (HEPA). But the combined evidence was that these technologies don’t stop or reduce illness.”
According to Brainard, there was weak evidence that the air treatment methods reduced the likelihood of infection, but she noted that this evidence “seems biased and imbalanced.”
“We strongly suspect that there were some relevant studies with very minor or no effect, but these were never published,” she says in a release. “Our findings are disappointing, but it is vital that public health decision-makers have a full picture. Hopefully those studies that have been done during COVID will be published soon, and we can make a more informed judgment about what the value of air treatment may have been during the pandemic.”
This research was led by the University of East Anglia with collaborators at University College London, the University of Essex, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Trust, and the University of Surrey.
It was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Health Protection Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response, led by Kings College London and UEA in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency.
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