Abstract
Offices expose adult populations to airborne contaminants for several hours each working day. To support practical cost–benefit thinking for indoor air quality (IAQ), we combine (i) office concentration evidence from global sampling studies, (ii) contaminant-specific harm expressed in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), and (iii) published monetary values per averted DALY for very-high Human Development Index settings. The output is an annual monetary burden per person for priority contaminants. Results highlight particulate matter (PM) as the dominant cost driver, suggesting a clear focus for cost-effective IAQ interventions in offices.
Building decisions often compare intervention costs (filtration, source control, ventilation strategies) against energy or maintenance budgets, while health impacts remain difficult to express on the same scale. DALYs provide a single harm metric that combines years of life lost and years lived with disability. By assigning a monetary value to an averted DALY, office contaminant exposure can be translated into an annual economic burden that is directly comparable with the cost of control strategies [1]. This does not replace compliance or comfort-based assessments; it provides an additional, health-centred lens for prioritising interventions.