Do air purifiers in classrooms help kids in avoid a lurgy?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-10-11 02:00

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US and Korean researchers say high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers in our kids' classrooms do not actually reduce how many viruses they are exposed to. The researchers looked at the exposure rates to all kinds of nasties in 200 classrooms, with just over half of them installed with HEPA purifiers. They found that the devices didn't actually reduce the amount of viruses the kids were exposed to, but did modestly reduce the varieties of bugs they came across.

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Research JAMA, Web page

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Boston Children’s Hospital, USA

Funder: This study was supported by grants RO1 AI144119, U01 AI110397, R21 AI178155, R21 AI175965 from the NIH (Drs Phipatanakul and Lai) and grant COVID 923084 from the American Lung Association (Drs Phipatanakul and Lai). Coway Co Ltd donated the portable air purifiers used in this study.

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