Building envelope materials, indoor environmental quality and public-health relevance in Kuwait: a narrative review of exposure pathways in a hot-arid climate

Kuwait’s hot-arid climate, intense solar exposure, dust conditions, and prolonged reliance on air-conditioning create distinctive demands on building-envelope materials and may influence their long-term interaction with indoor environments. This narrative review examines building-envelope and insulation materials investigated in Kuwait or under Kuwait climatic conditions and evaluates their potential indoor environmental and public-health relevance through measurable exposure pathways. Kuwait-focused evidence was identified primarily through Scopus and complemented by international literature where direct Kuwait-specific exposure or health evidence was unavailable. The current review is a source-pathway-measurement synthesis that relates envelope assemblies and transport mechanisms with measurable indoor environmental indicators without drawing Kuwait-specific health conclusions. Environmental and operational factors, including high surface temperatures, solar exposure, dust deposition, thermal cycling, prolonged air-conditioning, moisture gradients, installation, maintenance, and aging, may modify material behavior and the conditions under which exposure pathways become relevant. Accordingly, public-health relevance should be assessed through measurable indicators source-release-transport pathways rather than inferred from material type alone. Additionally, simulation or portable-cabin findings should not be considered functionally similar to occupied-building exposure evidence. Therefore, this review proposes an integrated assembly-transport-IEQ-occupant framework combining thermal performance, material condition and aging, ventilation and moisture assessment, targeted chemical or particulate measurements where relevant pathway exists, and occupant-reported Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). This structured approach underlines the measurements needed to assess the public-health relevance of building-envelope materials under Kuwait’s hot-arid and highly air-conditioned conditions.