Bioaerosol Surveillance and Exposure in the Built Environment

Airborne microbial communities in indoor, occupational, and other constructed environments are increasingly recognized as a distinct and consequential niche within environmental microbiomes. Built systems, from residential buildings to engineered infrastructure such as water and waste treatment facilities, generate and circulate bioaerosols whose composition is shaped by the surrounding environment, human activity, and material surfaces. Despite growing evidence linking bioaerosol exposure to occupational and public health outcomes, substantial gaps remain in how these communities are surveyed, how their composition is driven by environmental and land-use factors, and how exposure risk can be anticipated rather than only measured after the fact.This Research Topic aims to consolidate current understanding of bioaerosol surveillance and exposure across built and engineered environments, with a threefold focus: (1) methods for detecting and characterizing airborne microbial communities in indoor and occupational settings, (2) the environmental and land-use drivers, from soil disturbance and dust to climate-driven change, that shape which microbes become airborne and are transported into built systems, and (3) computational and predictive approaches that model microbial dispersal and exposure risk from environmental and genomic data.Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:Detection, characterization, and monitoring of bioaerosols in indoor and occupational built environments.Bioaerosol emissions and exposure risk from engineered systems, such as water and wastewater treatment infrastructure.Environmental and land-use drivers of microbial aerosolization, including soil, dust, and global-change effects on source communities.Predictive and computational modelling of microbial dispersal, environmental preference, and exposure risk from genomic and environmental data.Health and occupational-safety implications of bioaerosol exposure in constructed environments.We welcome original research, brief reports, reviews, methods, and perspective articles that advance the surveillance, characterization, or prediction of bioaerosol exposure in built environments. Topic editors: Albert Barberán, Josep Ramoneda, Kelly S Ramirez Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85269/bioaerosol-surveillance-and-exposure-in-the-built-environment