Relating Sick Building Symptoms to Environmental Conditions and Worker Characteristics

Abstract

Recent concern has centered on "sick buildings" in which there has been an unusually high percentage of health complaints by the building's occupants. Typically, these gymptoms are thought to be tied to indoor air quality characteristics, such as high levels of respirable particles or volatiles, thermal conditions, etc. In addition, recent studies have drawn connections between SBS symptoms and non-environmental variables, i.e., personal and occupational factors.We review Hedge, et al. (1995) and perform additional analyses of their data. In a study of 27 air-conditioned office buildings, they measured nine indoor environmental conditions at various locations within each building and concurrently questioned workers on sixteen SBS symptoms and a number of other personal factors. The analyses we perform are among the first to attempt to draw formal statistical connections between SBS symptoms and both personal worker characteristics and indoor air pollutants simultaneously. The analyses are based on severity scales for each symptom which include information not only on the frequency with which an indi\idual experienced a symptom, but also on how much the symptom disrupted the individual's work. Results from sixteen linear mixed effects models indicate that significant predictors are primarily personal and occupational (rather than environmental) in nature.

Penyelenggaraan Bangunan dalam Pengurusan Fasiliti: Elemen Mempengaruhi Kualiti Amalan Penyelenggaraan Bangunan

“…Simptom SBS merangkumi organ mata, saluran pernafasan atas, saluran pernafasan bawah, kulit dan simptom yang tidak spesifik [13,25,30]. Manakala bagi BRI, punca kepada simptom dapat dikenalpasti dan tidak berkait dengan keadaan psikososial atau komponen bangunan seperti pencahayaan.…”