Impact Of Household Mould And Damp On Human Health

The Relationship Between Fungal Spores and Allergic Reactions

The current assignment takes into consideration the impact of household mould and damp upon the health of people. The problem is mainly pre-dominant in the downtrodden areas of the developing countries. Within the downtrodden area where people have been living amongst poor conditions, the problem of damp or mould induced health issues are rampant. The topic is particularly interesting as moulds are naturally occurring ad widespread in the environment. Therefore, they cannot be eliminated from the environment completely and constitute an important part of the ecology, where they enrich the soil further for plant growth. A mould is a fungus that grows in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. The moulds reproduce by producing spores which are disseminated into the environment.  On coming in contact with these spores many people have been seen to develop allergic reactions such as hay fever, itchy skin, hypersensitivity which culminates into respiratory distress (Liddell and Guiney 2015). The study of moulds refers to a branch of biology known as mycology.  It could also be studied under the head of environmental biology and is of particularly interest to the environmental biologist as the moulds play a significant role in the environment and their growth could be hardly checked or controlled.

A lot of studies have been conducted in this area with regards to the growth and abundance of   moulds in the environment and the particular manner in which they can alter the environment. The moulds are ubiquitous in their nature of distribution and form a common component of workplace and household dust (Rudert and Portnoy 2017).  In large quantities, the fungal spores can affect the human respiratory system by triggering hypersensitivity reactions. Some of the moulds have been seen to produce high amount of mycotoxins.  As mentioned by Lawrence (2017), the mycotoxins have been seen to act as potential neurotoxins. One such toxic mould is Stachybotrys chartarum which has been seen to produce high amount of mycotoxins.  In this respect, strong indoor mould growth is generally seen to be an indication for presence of high quantity of fungal spores in the external environment. The exposure to damp and mouldy environments can result in a varied amount of symptomatic expressions in the inhabitants such as nasal stiffness, throat, eye, skin irritation and coughing etc. As mentioned by Boomsma  et al. (2017), the mouldy environments when inhabited by immunosuppressed people have been seen to result in lethal consequences. It has been that the mould accumulates in damp and poorly ventilated buildings. As reported by World Health Organization (WHO), 300 million of childhood asthma could be attributed to high amounts of exposure to damp and mouldy environments.  It has been proven from various studies that the cold climate further triggers the development of mould by 15% (Sauni et al. 2015).  Studies conducted in this field have promoted that dwelling in damp and mouldy environments could be related to higher amount of depression. It was triggered by the perception of control over one’s home or physical health. The indoor air quality as well openness of the dwelling space has been seen to produce positive impacts upon an individual mental health.

Asthma and Respiratory Disorders caused by Fungal Spores

A number of random control trials were conducted to investigate the effects of mould and damp on the respiratory well being of an individual. It was seen that repairing houses reduced asthma related symptoms by 95% (Baxi et al. 2016). As argued by Jürgensen and Madsen (2016), such results were only obtained for respiratory tract infections comparatively neutral results were obtained for other ailments or disorders. Damp environments further trigger the growth and development of moulds and have been proved with a number of vivid examples. On September 2005, hurricanes KATRINA and RITA had made fall along the gulf coast drowning a number of areas such as New Orleans, St. Bernard, east and west Jefferson, which further triggered the growth of indoor moulds (Mendell et al. 2018).  As mentioned by Dallongeville  et al. (2015), an extensive study conducted in those areas later depicted high mould contamination.  After the hurricane flood an estimated 46% homes were found to have some mould contamination where 17% were found with heavy mould contamination (Sharma et al. 2017). In this respect, some of the effective interventions such as the use of high efficiency air particulate (HEPA)  have been seem to reduce the percentage of air pollutants (Dallongeville et al. 2015). The use of air conditioners with properly installed HEPA filters has been discussed over here as they have been effective in reducing the amount of air borne spores. 

 The literature mentioned above explains the impact of damp environment in triggering the growth of moulds and the affect of the same on individual health. However, the study sources fail to link the effect of a cold damp and stagnating environment on the mental health of people. However, there has been sufficient link between a cold and damp climate the mental well being of people (Rudert and Portnoy 2017).  Research had proved that a damp and cold environment has been seen to trigger immune-compression in people (Eikemo et al. 2017). The immune-compression has been further related with low levels of oxytocin.

Additionally, the   moulds have been seen to be causing varying degrees of hypersensitivity in the patients (Bramley 2017). Some of these have been governed by the existing pathophysiological condition of the patient. There has been lack of study focussing upon the differences in the research results. Additionally, the different literature sources viewed over here failed to discuss effective intervention technologies or barrier for the prevention of the fungal spores induced infection.

The current study investigates the impact of damp and mould upon the health or people and the effective interventions, which could be implemented for dealing with the same. The literature review has presented a number of research gaps such as lack of effective intervention technologies for the prevention or control of spore induced reactions. Since the the mycofungal spores are abundant in the external environment controlling them is practically impossible (Jürgensen and Madsen 2016).

• To study the  impact  of mould  upon the health  of people
• To prevent the rate of  fungal  spores reduced infection in population
• To  establish the impact of damp and mould upon the  physical and mental health of people

Impact of Dampness and Mould on Mental Health

In order to collect sufficient information upon the above stated aims the researcher will use secondary research methodology. Hence, the researcher will adopt a secondary study design where he will be reviewing a number of articles and journals for the gathering of knowledge and evidence based facts relating the effect of damp upon the growth of moulds. The researcher will conduct his search from a number of secondary databases such as EBSCO, SCOPUS, PUBMED, and NCBI. In this respect, a number of search criteria will be applied by the researcher such as articles which had been published prior to the last ten years will be excluded by the researcher. In this respect, only the articles which had been published in English will be taken into consideration by the researcher. The researcher will be basing his search criteria upon a number of exclusive keywords. The rest of the search generated will be excluded by the researcher.

There are a number of ethical issues related to secondary data analysis, which often possess additional challenges to the researcher. One of the ethical demands is related to maintaining the anonymity of the research subjects. In case the secondary data is freely available over internet, books or other public platforms and hence prior consent will be taken by the researcher before using them.

Reference table

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References

Andersen, M.J., Skinner, A., Williamson, A.B., Fernando, P. and Wright, D., 2018. Housing conditions associated with recurrent gastrointestinal infection in urban Aboriginal children in NSW, Australia: findings from SEARCH. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, pp 45-59.

Baxi, S.N., Portnoy, J.M., Larenas-Linnemann, D., Phipatanakul, W., Barnes, C., Baxi, S., Grimes, C., Horner, W.E., Kennedy, K., Larenas-Linnemann, D. and Levetin, E., 2016. Exposure and health effects of fungi on humans. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, 4(3), pp.396-404.

Boomsma, C., Pahl, S., Jones, R.V. and Fuertes, A., 2017. “Damp in bathroom. Damp in back room. It’s very depressing!” exploring the relationship between perceived housing problems, energy affordability concerns, and health and well-being in UK social housing. Energy Policy, 106, pp.382-393.

Bramley, G., 2017. Housing and the living environment. Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK: Vol. 2: Volume 2-The Dimensions of Disadvantage, 2, p.225.

Dallongeville, A., Le Cann, P., Zmirou-Navier, D., Chevrier, C., Costet, N., Annesi-Maesano, I. and Blanchard, O., 2015. Concentration and determinants of molds and allergens in indoor air and house dust of French dwellings. Science of The Total Environment, 536, pp.964-972.

Eikemo, T.A., Bambra, C., Huijts, T. and Fitzgerald, R., 2017. The first pan-European sociological health inequalities survey of the general population: the European Social Survey rotating module on the social determinants of health. European Sociological Review, 33(1), pp.137-153.

Hurraß, J., Heinzow, B., Aurbach, U., Bergmann, K.C., Bufe, A., Buzina, W., Cornely, O.A., Engelhart, S., Fischer, G., Gabrio, T. and Heinz, W., 2017. Medical diagnostics for indoor mold exposure. International journal of hygiene and environmental health, 220(2), pp.305-328.

Jürgensen, C.W. and Madsen, A.M., 2016. Influence of everyday activities and presence of people in common indoor environments on exposure to airborne fungi. AIMS Environ. Sci, 3, pp.77-95.

Lawrence, R.J., 2017. Co-producing Our Habitat for Health and Well-being. In Health and Well-being for Interior Architecture (pp. 31-44). Abingdon: Routledge.

Liddell, C. and Guiney, C., 2015. Living in a cold and damp home: frameworks for understanding impacts on mental well-being. Public Health, 129(3), pp.191-199.

Mendell, M.J., Mirer, A.G., Cheung, K., Douwes, J., Sigsgaard, T., Bønløkke, J., Meyer, H.W., Hirvonen, M.R. and Roponen, M., 2018. Health effects associated with dampness and mould. WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: dampness and mould, pp.63-92.

Rudert, A. and Portnoy, J., 2017. Mold allergy: is it real and what do we do about it?. Expert review of clinical immunology, 13(8), pp.823-835.

Sauni, R., Verbeek, J.H., Uitti, J., Jauhiainen, M., Kreiss, K. and Sigsgaard, T., 2015. Remediating buildings damaged by dampness and mould for preventing or reducing respiratory tract symptoms, infections and asthma. The Cochrane Library, pp.205-234.

Sharma, H.K., Wani, K.A. and Bhat, A.A., 2017. Effects of Occupational Exposure on the Health of Rag Pickers Due to Fungal Contamination at Waste Dumping Sites in Gwalior (India). Iranian Journal of Health, Safety and Environment, 4(2), pp.722-728.

Shenassa, E.D., Daskalakis, C., Liebhaber, A., Braubach, M. and Brown, M., 2017. Dampness and mold in the home and depression: an examination of mold-related illness and perceived control of one’s home as possible depression pathways. American Journal of Public Health, 97(10), pp.1893-1899.

Shoemaker, R.C., House, D. and Ryan, J.C., 2014. Structural brain abnormalities in patients with inflammatory illness acquired following exposure to water-damaged buildings: a volumetric MRI study using NeuroQuant. Neurotoxicology and teratology, 45, pp.18-26.

Tripathy, J.P., 2013. Secondary data analysis: Ethical issues and challenges. Iranian journal of public health, 42(12), p.1478.

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