health

A pilot questionnaire study was carried out on two groups: 128 occupants of new homes' (52 R-2000) on the one hand and 149 occupants of control homes on the other hand: both the groups were questionned to compare their general and respiratory health at occupancy and one year later. Symptom scores improved significantly over the year of occupancy for the occupants of energy efficient homes.

The purpose of that study was to measure exposure levels of phthalates and musk fragrances in typical apartments, kindergartens and to estimate their effects on health. 59 apartments and 74 kindergarten in Berlin were studied.

IAQ investigators have a responsibility to give correct advice to the client. In cases with mould growth, the question of people’s health is often involved. Economical aspects can also be considerable due to the high costs of necessary actions during and

There is a worldwide trend to develop a tool that can provide comprehensive assessment ofbuildings for sustainability. Many efforts were found to propose approaches for energy-savingand resource-recycling, and on the other hand buildings for sustainability should maintain theacceptable indoor environment quality to maintain the occupants health. This paper presentsa comprehensive index, IEI(AHP), composed of the filtered physical indicators, for quantitativeassessment on the built environment.

The stake of sustainable development is to ensure today's and future developments of awealthy and healthy society in a high quality environment. This is also valid for sustainablebuildings that should take account of environmental, economical and social stakes. Thisincludes, among others, low energy use, good indoor environment quality (IEQ) and health.One of the aims of the European HOPE project is to evaluate buildings from these points ofview.

The scope of this paper is the definition of some indoor air quality health-based criteria forhealthy buildings. One possible approach to establish indoor air quality health-based criteriacould be to define target values of a set of measurable parameters (chemical, physical andbiological) related to health. Target values to assess the parameters are set according to fullexposure (e.g. WHO guidelines, 24 h all people) or partial exposure (e.g., EPA guidelines, 8 haverage adult).

Within the European funded project PeBBu (Performance-Based Building), a state-of-the-artreport on the performance-based building (PBB) approach with focus on healthy buildings isprepared. It deals with methods, guidelines, protocols and tools to design, evaluate andmeasure the health status of buildings or designs for buildings. The health of buildings in thiscontext relates to air quality, ventilation, thermal comfort, noise and visual comfort.After an introduction into PBB, this paper summarizes the state-of-the-art with respect toperformance and healthy buildings.

Regrettably, buildings often do not perform as expected or wanted by the users. Especiallywith regard to indoor environment, dissatisfaction is occurring frequently.

This study estimated the health, energy and economic benefits of an economizer ventilationcontrol system that increases outside air supply during mild weather to save energy. A modelof the influence of ventilation rate on airborne transmission of respiratory illnesses was usedto extend the limited data relating ventilation rate with illness and sick leave. An energysimulation model calculated ventilation rates and energy use versus time for an office buildingin Washington, D.C., with fixed minimum outdoor air supply rates, with and without aneconomizer.

In order to clarify the effects on comfort and health of relative humidity and humidity ratio,subjective experiments were conducted in a climate chamber in Japan during the summer of2002. Fifteen subjects were exposed for 180 min, while being engaged in simulated officeworks and questionnaires. The experiments were conducted at a constant SET* (StandardNew Effective Temperature) with six different humidity conditions, namely [30%RH/6.13 g/kg],[37%RH/6.13 g/kg], [37%RH/7.45 g/kg], [45%RH/7.45 g/kg], [45%RH/8.97 g/kg],[55%RH/8.97 g/kg].