Activity pattern of a selected group of school occupants and their family members in Helsinki — Finland

The daily time-spent in different environments is an important factor in calculation of personal exposure to air pollutants. Despite this importance, the amount of research done on this topic is rather limited, especially in North Europe where the climate is rather cold. In this study, we gathered detailed information via a standard questionnaire to report the residence time and place of 167 subjects (between 2 and 93 years old) lived in Helsinki during three time periods in winter and spring 2009. Subjects spent 81%–92% of their time indoors and up to ~ 15% of their time outdoors. The daily time-spent in different environments was affected by several factors: ambient temperature, type of day (workday or weekend/holiday), gender, and age. Therefore, the differences occur individually and can be explained by these factors. For example, subjects spent more time at home on weekends than workdays because obviously the majority of our subjects did not have work on weekends. The time-spent at kindergarten/school/work increased with age until retirement. Females spent more time at home than males. After all, the activity pattern found in this study is rather similar to those previously reported in Germany and North America.

► Subjects spend more than 81% of their time indoors, up to ~ 15% outdoors, and 2.7%–5.3% in transit transportation.
► Time-use and activity-pattern of subjects can be determined by age, gender, type of day, and season.
► Personal exposure is expected to vary between males and females, and also between different age groups.