This project addressed the need to develop air quality data and methods to analyze and interpret these data respecting airborne particulate matter and its sources in indoor environments in Canada, particularly in northern regions of the country. The program was developed to initiate novel methods for assessing indoor airborne particulate contamination including:

• development of a chemical database of the concentration and composition of indoor airborne particulate matter in northern communities in Canada for indoor, non-industrial environments;
• development of a preliminary catalogue of chemical signatures for indoor sources, particularly for wood smoke and cigarette smoke, appropriate for statistical source apportionment, and determination of whether the inorganic fraction of the signature can be used as a surrogate for that of the organic fraction, and use of software to perform source apportionment calculations on chemical composition data for samples of airborne particulate matter collected in the field.

The final component of the assessment phase, development of exposure and design models, will be based upon the results of this work, thus providing a generic application to indoor air quality problems.