Activity-Based Indoor Chemical Assessment Model: Framework for Comparing how Occupant Activities Influence Exposure to Semivolatile Organic Compounds
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Recent empirical evidence suggests that human occupants indoors influence the dynamics of semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) (e.g., Lunderberg et al., 2019). Traditional modelling approaches, however, assume occupants are passive individuals with constant and continuous activities (e.g., Zhang et al., 2009 & 2014). Consequently, these approaches either ignore or potentially underrepresent variability in SVOC exposure. Here, we present a novel multimedia model, Activity-Based Indoor Chemical Assessment Model (ABICAM), that accounts for occupant activities on a transient basis. As a case example, we considered time-varying exposures of an average adult male in a single-room residence to three phthalates over a 24-hour simulation period. The goal of this analysis was to compare variability associated with resident activities with variability due to building characteristics [e.g., air change rate (ACR)].