The COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to the importance of indoor air quality and ushered in new guidance on higher ventilation rates to help with infection risk reduction. As the pandemic eased, questions emerged on the benefits of these higher outdoor air ventilation rates beyond disease transmission. To investigate this, we leveraged a unique opportunity to study the cognitive performance of graduate students attending classes in university lecture halls where elevated ventilation rates introduced in response to COVID-19 were still in effect. We collected indoor air quality data from real-time continuous monitors installed in classrooms and participant responses to cognitive test scores collected through our custom-built smartphone-based research application. We then constructed a series of mixed-effects statistical models to explore associations between indoor air exposures and metrics of cognitive performance.
Our three key takeaways from this work are:
- Lower CO2 concentrations are associated with higher cognitive test scores, even over the low range of CO2 exposures measured in the classrooms.
- Peak CO2 exposures, also corresponding with other indoor air pollutants, showed the strongest statistical evidence of associations.
- Higher ventilation rates appear to have benefit beyond infection risk reduction by reducing indoor air exposures and supporting cognitive performance.
While more work is needed to assess the underlying causal mechanisms of these associations, increasing outdoor air ventilation appears to promote indoor air quality and cognitive performance and could have an even greater impact in schools in need of major ventilation upgrades. The pandemic also highlighted the importance of in-person learning for student development and the pervasive need for major upgrades to school facilities. This study underscores the importance of improving ventilation in school settings to support student learning and performance.
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