Toward configuring healthier classrooms: developing indoor environmental quality assessment indicators

Classrooms serve as essential indoor environments for students, as they spend a significant portion of their developmental years within them. This has prompted a critical set of questioning of these indoor environments, presenting the emergence of understanding how they affect health and comfort, as well as the importance of assessing these effects. Currently, one of the most advantageous methods of assessment is the Green building Rating Tools (GBRTs). There is an abundance of rating tools that aid in assessing the performance of many types of buildings’ Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). However, maintaining a healthy classroom environment (HCE) necessitates the integration of health and comfort aspects alongside any classroom assessment process. Thus, the primary aim of the current research was to identify the definition of HCE attributes. Moreover, the research aims to detect areas that are yet to be considered or need more attention of the current IEQ assessment indicators, regarding promoting and assessing any classroom environmental healthiness. This was done by revisiting and delving into the IEQ-health-comfort relation, and, moreover, analyzing the attributes which verify the healthiness of a classroom environment and indicators which are traditionally employed to assess IEQ within existing rating systems. A comparative analysis methodology was used to identify key indicators, commons and correlations, in order to determine the extent of compatibility and differences. This analysis has resulted in a new list of 60 composite assessment indicators that concentrate on the health and comfort aspects, referred to as HCE indicators, a step toward healthier classrooms. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.