Editorial Guidelines

Interior Medicine is a physician-founded resource on healthier home products and household exposures. The site is written and reviewed by Dr. Meg Christensen, with the goal of producing nuanced, research-backed product reviews and education that holds up to scrutiny.

Who Writes the Content

Every page on Interior Medicine is written or reviewed by Dr. Meg Christensen. Author bylines appear on every product review, material guide, and course page. There are no anonymous contributors and no ghostwritten content.

Author Qualifications. Meg's credentials are in medicine, biochemistry, epidemiology, and healthier materials, with additional coursework in architecture and interior design. The combination directly informs the analytical approach used on the site. Where content involves clinical or toxicological claims, Dr. Christensen reviews and approves all material before publication. There is no separate editorial board, and final editorial decisions rest with Dr. Christensen as the sole physician founder. Full background is on the About Meg page, with credential verification structured through the Methodology and About Interior Medicine pages.

AI Use Policy. AI tools are used in editorial workflows for tasks like outline generation, draft revision, and consistency checking. No content is published without substantive human writing, editing, and physician review. Final approval of every claim, citation, and rating decision rests with Dr. Christensen.

How I Approach This Work

These are a few of the most important commitments I have that shape the writing and reviewing on this site:

• This site doesn't sort readers by camp. Skeptics, enthusiasts, conventionally trained experts, and people deep in alternative wellness are all welcome, and the standard I hold myself to is that a reader shouldn't be able to identify my own position on these debates from the writing alone. The information matters; the tribe doesn't. A better conversation is the goal.

• Skepticism is applied equally to alarmism and dismissal. Bad reasoning happens on both ends of the conversation.

• Hazard and risk are treated as different things. The distinction matters and most of the non-toxic conversation collapses them.

• Uncertainty is named when it exists. "Probably," "I don't know," and "the research is unresolved" appear regularly in the work. Calibration matters more than confidence.

• Fear is not used as a persuasive tool. Some facts are alarming, and those get named accurately. But fear-driven framing isn't how anything here is sold or written.

Read my About Interior Medicine page for more on my philosophy.

How Products Are Evaluated

Every product is reviewed using a documented evaluation method tailored to the category. Furniture and other material-based products are rated against a 70-substance hazard database and third-party material certifications. Water filters are rated against NSF performance certifications. Air purifiers are rated against aggregated independent testing data. Each category's specific criteria, the reasoning behind the rating tiers, and the limits of the method are documented in full on the Methodology page.

Brand-supplied claims are starting points for investigation, not sources for ratings. When a brand calls a product "non-toxic" or "clean," that triggers a review of the underlying materials and certifications, not an endorsement of the claim.

The reasoning behind each rating is shown rather than hidden, so readers can see what the rating is based on and where the limits of the assessment lie.

Sources and Citations

Claims are supported by peer-reviewed research, government and regulatory sources, and standards bodies whenever possible. Citations appear inline within FAQs and at the bottom of substantive guides and course pages. Outbound links to PubMed, the EPA, IARC, ICNIRP, NTP, Health Canada, and other expert sources appear throughout the site, so readers can verify the underlying evidence rather than taking my word for it. When research is limited or contested, that's named explicitly rather than glossed over. "Probably" and "I don't know" appear often on purpose, especially on the Material Guides.

Source quality is weighted by independence, peer review status, and consistency with the broader body of evidence. Regulatory agency reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses carry more weight than single studies. Industry-funded research is read with extra scrutiny. The methodology behind research evaluation is documented in How Research Quality Is Evaluated on the Methodology page.

When a Rating Changes

If new research, a reformulation, or additional evidence changes my assessment of a product, the review is updated and dated, and the rating reflects the new evaluation. If a previously recommended product no longer meets my standards, the affiliate link is removed even if I'm in an active partnership with the brand. Updates appear in the "Last reviewed" date at the top of each review.

Corrections and Reasoned Disagreement

The rating scales and material guidance on this site are open to scrutiny. None of it is proprietary, and the reasoning behind every placement is laid out on the corresponding Material Guide so you can see how I got there. Two kinds of feedback are especially welcome:

Corrections: If you find a factual error, a misread study, a citation that doesn't support the claim it's attached to, or a product description that no longer matches what the brand is actually selling, please send it. Brands change materials, formulations, and sourcing without notice, especially products sold through big-box retailers where supply chains and formulations shift between batches. I can't catch every change in real time and I appreciate the heads up.

Reasoned disagreement: The Material Health Guides and their rating tiers involve judgment calls about how to weigh certifications, ingredients, and tradeoffs. Where the evidence is still developing, I lean precautionary. Where the evidence is settled, I try to say so plainly, even when it cuts against the prevailing non-toxic narrative. Reasonable people could weight these inputs differently, and if you would, I want to hear it. Disagreement of this kind isn't the same as a correction, but it's just as useful. Accuracy matters more than my ego, and reasoned pushback is how the scales get stress-tested and we get closer to the truth.

Both kinds of feedback can be sent through the feedback form.

Conflicts of Interest

Independence from Affiliate Relationships

Products are evaluated and rated independently of affiliate relationships. A product earns its rating before any affiliate consideration. Brands cannot pay for placement, higher ratings, or removal of negative coverage. Sponsored content and paid placements are not published on Interior Medicine.

Affiliate relationships are disclosed on a per-product basis throughout the site. Full details on how affiliate partnerships work and how affiliate compensation is balanced against editorial decisions are covered on the Affiliate Disclosure page.