A few major findings with respect to the associations between exposures to atmospheric fungal spores and health effects, including (1) fungal spore exposures appeared to result in a two-day-delay/lag effect on the number of clinic visits for asthma, (2) exposure of airborne Cladosporium and Alternaria spores might have posed the highest risk for increased hospital admission, compared to that of Basidiospores, (3) the data analyzed was the first to present an age-dependent effect of fungal spores on asthma hospital admissions, and (4) a potentially synergistic effect resulting from concurrent exposure to ambient fungal spores and particulate matter pollution was found to pose an elevated risk on asthma admissions, (5) a significantly negative correlation was observed between NPEFR and 3-day lag fungal spores (r=-0.387), (6) a 2-day-lag of NPEFR was also negatively associated with asthmatic symptom scores (r=-0.230), and (7) daily concentrations of sulfur dioxide, the only ambient air pollutant, were found to be negatively associated with NPEFR of the same day. Overall, our study demonstrated a consistent effect of fungal exposures on decreased pulmonary function and asthmatic symptoms. Another major component of this year was to investigate the risk factors in indoor environment from a birth cohort study. Paternal atopy could be an important hereditary factor for developing childhood allergic diseases, and such an effect could be far more significant, about 2~8 times of risk, with the concurrent presence of other environmental risk factors. The risk for children presenting IgE levels of more than 250 EU/mL was about four times (OR=4.19, 95%, CI: 1.57-12.63) for those observing visible mold at home. Higher carbon dioxide levels were found to be a risk for reporting stomach-ache and throat-ache in study children. Furthermore, higher fungal spore concentrations indoors appeared to be another potential risk, though without statistical significance, to result in higher frequency of respiratory symptoms found in study children. Children reporting allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis were from houses with higher relative humidity, compared to those symptom-free children. For those children confirmed by pediatricians as having allergic index of greater than 6, significantly higher total bacteria concentrations were found in their houses. We also continue to update the scientific literatures and reports around the world on the new findings on risk assessment and health effects of indoor pollution exposure. Newly modified or published standards of indoor air quality, and the management system adopted in different parts of the world were also collected and summarized. As part of the project commitments, we invited experts of IAQ from 4 Asian countries to participate in the “International Workshop on Indoor Air Quality”, held on April 27th, 2006 at the National Cheng Kung University. A series of prominent lectures were offered by these renowned experts while a historical “Memorandum of understanding (MOU)” was also signed among respective Societies of Taiwan, Japan and Korea.

bioaerosols, birth cohort study, allergic disease, indoor environment