respiratory diseases and even cancer have been linked to air pollution for a long time a recent study has found that there are more terrible consequences when the air quality drops including depression anxiety increased rates of suicide and an overall increase in the risk of mental disorders especially among childrenan air purifier is one option and is readily available to most people lets talk about how an air purifier works and are they effective at improving the local air qualityhow does an air purifier workair purifiers work properly in a closed system at the rooms entry point air purifiers use fans to suck in the outside air then this air is filtered and pushed out as clean air from this follows that filters are critical components in ensuring air purifier efficacyair purifier filters can be made out of paper fibreglass fibre and mesh good ones have multiple filter layers that have to be replaced regularly to remain effective for larger particles air filters are usually reusable only required to be meticulously washed these pollutants can range from pollen to dust mites such air purifiers are the most common but you cant rely on them to remove smaller air impuritiesimportance of air purifiersa study published in the british journal of psychiatry tracked 13000 participants in london uk and found that reducing the volume of small particle pollution by even a few percentage points would make a huge difference to mental health and save tens of millions in sunk healthcare costs each yearfor this you need cleaner air and you cant always rely on the government and businesses to use cleaner vehicles or implement other clean air initiatives but at your home you can always use an air purifier here are the types of air purifiers that are available in the marketuv based air purifiers if you want an air purifier that kills airborne bacteria or mold it should have a fan and a filter mesh for large pollutants such air purifiers use uv ultraviolet light filters an active air purifier uses higher wattage to expose air to ultraviolet rays constantlysome of these air purifiers claim to kill covid19 virus particles including the variants they are most commonly marketed with the uvc featureshortwave ultraviolet light in some markets these active air purifiers will also be marketed as uvgi standing for ultraviolet germicidal irradiationmany of us suffer from radiation burns when exposed to the sun during the summer this is because the sun emits a type of uv light when your skin is exposed to it it reddens signifying inflammation in other words your skin cell dna suffers damage when it is bombarded with uv radiationregardless if a virus is rna or dnabased it suffers the same damage this is also the reason why flu seasons retreat during summer and intensify during autumnwinter both viruses and bacteria are singlecell organisms relying on the integrity of their dna to survive and reproduce quickly therefore uvc air purifiers effectively mimic the sun