If you’re looking to avoid getting sick, chances are you’ll steer clear from visiting a hospital or traveling by plane—environments packed with people and their germs. A new study, however, demonstrates that hospital and airplane air are cleaner than we typically imagine.

Researchers analyzed an aircraft air filter, along with face masks worn by travelers and healthcare workers, to investigate the air in airplanes and hospitals. A study published today in the journal Microbiome reveals that the air in both environments primarily hosts harmless microbes usually related to human skin.

“We realized that we could use face masks as a cheap, easy air-sampling device for personal exposures and general exposures,” Erica Hartmann, lead author of the study and an environmental microbiologist at No

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