Clean air is essential for a healthy life. Air pollution is an issue that affects us all. We see the large plumes of vapor moving across the sky from an industrial plant, or feel the noxious fumes in our throat emitted by diesel trucks passing us on the freeway. But our homes are filled with persistent pollutants that silently degrade our health daily and we not aware of them.

It's been proven that despite smog and other outdoor pollutants, your home air quality is often much worse than the outdoor air. This is very troubling if you suffer from allergies or hay fever since indoor air is recirculated, often pulling any indoor contaminants through your home again and again.

The EPA estimates that indoor air pollution can be 2-5 times greater that outside. These include mold spores, bacteria, dust mites, pet dander, chemicals and gases. These pollutants can lead to allergies, asthma, fatigue, headaches and even cancer. The American Lung Association has confirmed that indoor air pollution, especially during summer months can increase the odds of asthma attacks, upper respiratory infections and colds. Improving the air in your home can aid overall breathing quality and reduce allergy symptoms such as red watery eyes and itchy skin.

How do you get rid of or reduce these pollutants in your home and improve air quality? Here are a few ideas.

Improve the ventilation and amount of outdoor air that flows into your home. This will improve the air quality. Think of it as a spring cleaning when you throw open the windows and air out the house. If you use an air conditioning unit that has vent controls, open these to allow air exchange when possible as well.

When painting indoors, always properly ventilate the house. It's not just the odor of the fumes, most paints have volatile organic compounds (VOC's). These are toxic chemicals which can gas-off into the air. Paints with low VOC's are made with few or no toxic compounds. If you cook or heat with gas a poorly adjusted stove can cause bleed off of fumes that will contaminate your home and needs to be vented outside and replaced with fresh, clean air.

In newer homes you may be able to get air-to-air heat exchangers installed on the furnace. These actively bring air from the outdoors into the house when the furnace runs. Check into this type of mechanical system if you are building a new home, especially if someone in your home suffers from asthma or severe allergies.

Obvious sources of indoor pollution that you can control includes not smoking in your house. Tobacco smoke is a highly toxic contaminant that builds up quickly and drastically reduces air quality. A few nights of shivering on your front porch in sub-zero temperatures to have that cigarette may induce you to improve your lung quality as well by quitting! If not, designate one room the smokers' room and keep it isolated from the rest of the house.

Pets are a large part of most peoples' life and they wouldn't dream of getting rid of Fluffy, but they should be groomed regularly and brushed often outside. This will loosen hair and dander off of them so that less is shed in the house. You'll be surprised by how much your pets actually shed once you start brushing them on a regular basis.

There are many different types of air purifiers and cleaners available in all sizes and price ranges to fit a variety of needs. You can get small units that will fit easily on your desk or whole-house units that are quite sophisticated. One thing in common is that their function is generally limited to removing particle pollutants such as pet dander, smoke, and pollen.

To determine how efficient an air purifier is, look at the percentage of efficiency rate, which indicates how well it removes pollutants and the rate at which air is drawn through or over the filter, determined in cubic feet per minute. The best combination is one which will be relatively high in both. Mid-range on both is better than low in one and high in another.

Also, invest in an inexpensive air quality test kit to assist you in evaluating the quality of your air. Models are available to test for molds, dust mites, skin cells, insect fragments and industrial chemicals that will affect your health. This will help you develop the proper plan to lead you to a more healthy life by surrounding you and your family in clean, pollution free air.