Editorial Policy

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, no ghostwritten content, and no AI-generated articles published without substantive human editing and expert review.

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. Full background is on the About Meg page.

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 the rating scales published in the Material Health Guides. The specific scale and reasoning applied appears under each product, so you can see exactly how a rating was reached and apply the same logic to products not yet reviewed on the site.

Ratings are based on what a product actually contains: the materials, chemistry, and verifiable certifications, not the marketing language a brand uses to describe it. Brand-supplied claims and copy are starting points for investigation, not sources for the review. When a brand says a product is "non-toxic" or "clean," that triggers a review of the underlying materials, not an endorsement of the claim.

I can independently test some products and do so when feasible, but I can't test every product on the site. For products I haven't tested directly, ratings reflect potential impact on health based on the published evidence about a product's materials and the chemistry that follows from them. The reasoning is shown rather than hidden, so you can see what the rating is based on and where the limits of the assessment lie.

A more detailed walkthrough of the full review method will be published as part of the free course on what "non-toxic" actually means.

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.

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

If you find an error or have evidence that should change an assessment, please reach out via my contact page. I take corrections seriously and update reviews when warranted.

Brands do sometimes change materials, formulations, or sourcing without notice, and I can't catch every change in real time. This is especially true for products sold through big-box retailers, where supply chains and formulations can shift between batches. If you notice that a product no longer matches the description in a review, I always appreciate the heads up so I can verify and update.

Affiliate Relationships

Affiliate relationships are disclosed on a per-product basis throughout the site. The full details of how affiliate partnerships work, and how I balance affiliate compensation and editorial decisions is covered in more detail on the Affiliate Disclosure page.