Ventilation and laboratory confirmed acute respiratory infection (ARI) rates in college residence halls in College Park, Maryland

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Strategies to protect building occupants from the risk of acute respiratory infection (ARI) need to consider ventilation for its ability to dilute and remove indoor bioaerosols. Prior studies have described an association of increased self-reported colds and influenza-like symptoms with low ventilation but have not combined rigorous characterization of ventilation with assessment of laboratory-confirmed infections. We report a study designed to fill this gap. We followed laboratory-confirmed ARI rates and measured CO2 concentrations for four months during the winter-spring of 2018 in two campus residence halls: (1) a high ventilation building (HVB) with a dedicated outdoor air system that supplies 100% of outside air to each dormitory room, and (2) a low ventilation building (LVB) that relies on infiltration as ventilation. We enrolled 11 volunteers for a total of 522 person-days in the HVB and 109 volunteers for 6069 person-days in the LVB, and tested upper-respiratory swabs from symptomatic cases and their close contacts for the presence of 44 pathogens using a molecular assay.

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Author(s)

  • Shengwei Zhu, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
  • Sara Jenkins, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

Collaborator(s)

  • Kofi Addo, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
  • Mohammad Heidarinejad, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA; Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA
  • Sebastian A. Romo, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Avery Layne, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Joshua Ehizibolo, Prince George’s Community College, Largo, MD 20774, USA
  • Daniel Dalgo, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
  • Nicholas W. Mattise, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
  • 
Filbert Hong, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Oluwasanmi O. Adenaiye, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
  • 
 Jacob P. Bueno de Mesquita, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Barbara J. Albert, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • 
Rhonda Washington-Lewis, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Jennifer German, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
  • 
 Sheldon Tai, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Somayeh Youssefi, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Donald K. Milton, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

  • Jelena Srebric, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA


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