HBN - Priority Asthmagens
HBN Priority Building Material Asthmagens List
This list is based on the Healthy Building Network (HBN) Report entitled:
Full Disclosure Required: A Strategy to Prevent Asthma Through Building Product Selection
HBN cross-referenced building material content data from Pharos against three authoritative lists of asthmagens maintained by the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics (AOEC), Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST), and Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE). This exercise identified 40 chemicals asthma and are present in interior building materials.
HBN also examined emerging science not yet reflected in these lists, which identified 12 additional chemicals associated with asthma and present in interior building materials.
The study surveys literature that connects these chemicals with the onset of asthma. Source documents range from case reports and scientific literature that supported decisions by the above listing organizations to place chemicals on their lists of asthmagens, to the emerging evidence that some chemicals disrupt the prenatal and neonatal development of organs such as lungs. The study also considered pathways for people to become exposed to these chemicals during the service life of materials that contain them.
Through this literature review, HBN narrowed the list of 52 chemicals to a set of 28 high-priority chemicals indicated as potentially significant contributors to asthma in buildings and warrant avoidance in building materials. The HBN Priority Building Material Asthmagens Lists allow Pharos subscribers to screen building material content data for these 28 high-priority chemicals.