Major changes in indoor air-related symptoms, health worry, and views between 2018 and 2022 in Finland

Indoor air-related symptoms and health-worry are common in Finland, even though the levels of indoor air pollutants are mostly lower than elsewhere in Europe. To address these problems, the Finnish Indoor Air and Health Programme 2018–2028 was initiated. Changes in the population were monitored with repeated surveys. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in two independent random samples of Finnish people aged 25–64 in 2018 and 2022, with 1797 and 1616 responses, respectively. Changes in the prevalence of symptoms and other factors were investigated using multivariate logistic regression. Findings on the prevalence of symptoms were replicated in two additional major national surveys. Several significant changes were observed. In 2018, 45.8% reported worry related to the health effects of indoor air, compared with 26.8% in 2022. Indoor air-related symptoms at work decreased from 21.3 to 16.2%, and more respondents deemed the indoor air at their workplace as good. Moderate to severe symptoms decreased from 10 to 8%. Smaller improvements were observed in knowledge about the health effects of indoor air. Changes tended to be stronger among women and among those with an academic degree, less trust in social media, and less severe symptoms. Four years after the Finnish Indoor Air and Health Programme was initiated, several improvements occurred in the population in self-reported symptoms, perceived indoor air quality, health worry, and knowledge. Although it is impossible to disentangle the different causes for these changes by repeated surveys, it is likely that the programme has contributed to the positive developments observed.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  BMC Public Health

• Publication date

  2025-10-10

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1186/s12889-025-24224-8PMID 41074004PMCID 12512946
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• The Continuum of Severity of Functional Impairment Due to Indoor Air Symptoms

  2023cited by this paper
• Sociodemographic determinants of digital health literacy: A systematic review and meta-analysis

  2023cited by this paper
• Controlling chronic respiratory diseases in Finland from 1996 to 2018

  2022cited by this paper
• Parent's self-reported indoor environment-related symptoms and health worry increase symptom reports among their children at school-Study in two independent populations.

  2021cited by this paper
• The Finnish Allergy Program 2008-2018: Society-wide proactive program for change of management to mitigate allergy burden.

  2021cited by this paper
• Understanding and Responding to Health Literacy as a Social Determinant of Health.

  2020cited by this paper
• Healthy people in healthy premises: the Finnish Indoor Air and Health Programme 2018–2028

  2020influential reference
• Enhancing flash flood risk perception and awareness of mitigation actions through risk communication: A pre-post survey design

  2019cited by this paper
• Parental worry about indoor air quality and student symptom reporting in primary schools with or without indoor air quality problems.

  2019cited by this paper
• Health-related quality among life of employees with persistent nonspecific indoor-air-associated health complaints.

  2019cited by this paper
• On the origin of worries about modern health hazards: Experimental evidence for a conjoint influence of media reports and personality traits

  2018cited by this paper
• Are media reports able to cause somatic symptoms attributed to WiFi radiation? An experimental test of the negative expectation hypothesis

  2017cited by this paper
• Occupant productivity and office indoor environment quality: A review of the literature

  2016cited by this paper
• Reducing burden of disease from residential indoor air exposures in Europe (HEALTHVENT project)

  2016cited by this paper
• Self-reported health and comfort in 'modern' office buildings: first results from the European OFFICAIR study.

  2016cited by this paper
• Work-related symptoms in indoor environments: a puzzling problem for the occupational physician

  2015cited by this paper
• Gender differences in health information behaviour: a Finnish population-based survey.

  2015cited by this paper
• The role of perceived pollution and health risk perception in annoyance and health symptoms: a population-based study of odorous air pollution

  2013cited by this paper
• Are media warnings about the adverse health effects of modern life self-fulfilling? An experimental study on idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF).

  2013cited by this paper
• Modern Health Worries, Somatosensory Amplification and Subjective Symptoms: A Longitudinal Study

  2013cited by this paper
• Impact of television coverage on the number and type of symptoms reported during a health scare: a retrospective pre–post observational study

  2012cited by this paper
• Occurrence of moisture problems in schools in three countries from different climatic regions of Europe based on questionnaires and building inspections - the HITEA study.

  2012cited by this paper
• The relationship of modern health worries to depression, symptom reporting and quality of life in a general population survey.

  2012cited by this paper
• Development and evaluation of a risk-communication campaign on salmonellosis

  2011cited by this paper
• Communication about environmental health risks: A systematic review

  2010cited by this paper
• Functional health literacy and health-promoting behaviour in a national sample of British adults

  2007cited by this paper
• Institute

  2006cited by this paper
• A 10 year asthma programme in Finland: major change for the better

  2006cited by this paper
• Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century

  2000cited by this paper
• Communicating the greenhouse effect to the public : evaluation of a mass media campaign from a social dilemma perspective

  1996cited by this paper
• Channels and vehicles of communication: the asbestos awareness campaign.

  1993cited by this paper
• An institute of health.

  1983cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.