This week, we dive into a powerful piece of research that moves beyond surveys and snapshots to ask: What actually motivates people in deprived urban communities to change their indoor air quality behaviours—and how long does it take?

The paper is titled Psychological and Contextual Drivers of Indoor Air Quality Behaviours in a Deprived Urban Community: Evidence from Participatory Research, published in Building and Environment, and it's based on the Well Home Project—an 18-month longitudinal study tracking 110 households in West London.

The Central Question

Unlike most studies that rely on a quick one-off survey, this was participatory research. They didn't just treat residents as test subjects—they worked with them, engaged them, installed sensors in their homes, and followed them over time across four waves of surveys. This is crucial because we know that air pollution disproportionately affects deprived communities—people living in substandard housing, closer to busy roads, with higher rates of pre-existing health conditions. So understanding what drives them to act is absolutely vital if we want to address health inequalities.

But here's the fascinating part: self-efficacy grew over time. At the start of the project, confidence didn't make a huge difference. But as the months went on, people with high self-efficacy became increasingly likely to act. Building that muscle of confidence—that feeling of "I can handle this"—is a process, not a switch.

Key Insights:

• The Mold Effect—Visibility is Key: The strongest predictor of behaviour change in the entire study was the presence of visible mold and damp. If people saw mold, they acted. But mold is a late-stage indicator—by the time you see black spots on your wall, you've probably been breathing in damp air for months. We need to make other pollutants visible before the damage is done.

• Engagement is a Marathon, Not a Sprint: The longer people were involved in the Well Home Project, the more likely they were to change their behaviour. Sustained engagement is essential—not just a one-off flyer.

• What Actually Changed: Residents were most likely to report changes in window opening, cooking, and cleaning. But the only behaviours that showed a statistically significant increase over time were cooking and heating. Why? These might require more knowledge or confidence to adopt—things people learned through participation in the project.

• What Didn't Change: Smoking behaviour showed the lowest likelihood of change. Smoking is an addiction—a deeply habitual chemical dependency. Simply telling someone it's bad for indoor air is unlikely to break a nicotine addiction. Some issues require much more specific, targeted health interventions.

• The Education Paradox: Individuals with higher levels of education were actually less likely to adopt behavioural changes. The authors speculate this might be a ceiling effect—people with higher education might already be doing some of the right things before the study even started, so they had less room to improve.

• Participatory Research Works: By working with communities, the researchers didn't just gather data—they helped catalyze change. The residents who stuck with the project became more and more empowered to control their own environment.

This is Part Four of a five-part series exploring the psychology and perception of risk around air quality and ventilation.

Psychological and Contextual Drivers of Indoor Air Quality Behaviours in a Deprived Urban Community: Evidence from Participatory Research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.114089

The One Take Podcast in Partnership with

SafeTraces (https://www.safetraces.com/) and Inbiot (https://www.inbiot.es/?utm_campaign=simon&utm_source=airqualitymatters&utm_medium=podcast)

Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website (https://www.airqualitymatters.net/podcast)

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction: The Psychology of Indoor Air Quality in West London
• 00:01:16 The Well Home Project: Participatory Research in Action
• 00:02:14 The Health Belief Model: Understanding What Drives Action
• 00:03:36 The Key Findings: Severity and Self-Efficacy Win
• 00:04:41 The Mold Effect: When Visibility Drives Action
• 00:05:32 Time and Confidence: The Longitudinal Effect
• 00:06:23 What Changed and What Didn't: Behavior Breakdown
• 00:07:49 The Education Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions
• 00:08:39 The So What: From Scare Tactics to Empowerment
• 00:10:07 Closing Thoughts: Residents as Active Agents