Health outcome · marker · measured in %
Sperm motility
Part of: Semen quality
Also: progressive motility, total motility, sperm movement
The proportion of sperm in a sample that are moving, and the vigour with which they move, assessed under a microscope or by computer-assisted analysis. It is one of the standard semen parameters and the one most sensitive to recent exposure.
Why it matters indoors
Motility is the semen parameter with the shortest memory. Sperm take roughly three months to develop, but motility can be affected late in that process and after release, so it responds to exposures in the recent past in a way that count does not — which makes it the parameter most often examined against a measured environmental exposure rather than a lifetime history.
The exposures studied indoors are those of combustion and of plasticisers: fine particles and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons they carry, tobacco smoke, and phthalates, with oxidative damage to the sperm membrane as the mechanism proposed for all of them.
The measurement is less robust than its decimal places suggest. It depends on the time between production and analysis, on temperature, and on the observer, and it varies substantially within the same man between samples — so a single reading carries little weight and a study’s protocol matters more than usual.
Indoor factors with evidence
| Factor | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | SMD -0.93 (-0.15–-0.02) | men undergoing semen analysis | systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on ambient particulate matter and semen quality parameters (6264 participants in the included studies) | F-0227 Bahreiny Association between ambient particulate matter and semen qua… (2024) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | SMD -0.156 (-0.26–-0.04) | men undergoing semen analysis | systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on ambient particulate matter and semen quality parameters (6264 participants in the included studies) | F-0230 Bahreiny Association between ambient particulate matter and semen qua… (2024) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | SMD -0.194 (-0.38–-0.01) | men undergoing semen analysis | systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on ambient particulate matter and semen quality parameters (6264 participants in the included studies) | F-0231 Bahreiny Association between ambient particulate matter and semen qua… (2024) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Sperm motility. Coridum Knowledge G-0165, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0165/