Information for parents
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Here you will find information for you who are considering or have already consented to your child's participation in the air purifier study. More comprehensive information can be found in the link you received through the school.
What does the study mean for your child?
If you have been informed that your child's classroom is participating in the study, air purifiers and air quality sensors will be installed in the classroom. The air purifiers will mostly be on during teaching hours throughout the entire 6-week study period.
The study will collect data on air quality in the classroom and gather aggregated absence data from the school's own absence register.
Additionally, we invite you and your child to contribute to this study in the following ways:
- Answer a short questionnaire every week during the 6 weeks the study is ongoing. The questionnaire takes about two minutes to complete each time. Your responses will help us investigate the relationship between the use of air purifiers and sickness absence.
- Participate in an interview at the end of the study period. We would like to hear if your child has had any negative or positive experiences with having an air purifier in the classroom, in terms of noise, disturbances, air quality, etc. We would also like to hear about your attitudes towards your child being tested for COVID-19 in connection with other studies.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of air purifiers?
Air purifiers may make the air in the classroom cleaner by removing things like pollen, mold, and even viruses. This could potentially reduce problems with asthma and allergic reactions and might reduce the risk of being infected by viruses, but we are not sure, which is one of the reasons why we want to do this study. There are also some studies suggesting that cleaner air can help children perform better on tests and feel better in general.
Air purifiers can generate some noise, but we will in consultation with the teacher set the operation level so that noise can be minimized as much as possible. Incorrect placement can lead to draft, but this will also be considered when placing the air purifiers. It will be important for us to find out in this study whether anyone is nevertheless bothered by the air purifiers.
Voluntary participation
Air purifiers and air quality meters will be installed in the participating classrooms, but it is voluntary for students/parents to participate in interviews and in surveys.
