Describes a study of 4373 office employees in 42 different office buildings a 47 ventilation conditions, aimed at highlighting symptoms of sick building syndrome. More symptoms were reported by women and by clerical/secretarial workers. Overall, buildings with ventilation from local or central induction/fan coil units had more symptoms per worker. States that there was however a wide variation between the building sickness indices of buildings within each ventilation category which was only partially explained by differences in jobs and gender.
Describes a case of primary and secondary infections of TB in an office environment in Tokyo, Japan. It was found that the ventilation system was frequently closed down to save energy, resulting in high CO2 concentrations. Concludes that the secondary infections were due to insufficient ventilation.
Compares self reported health problems of employees in air conditioned open plan, non air conditioned open plan and conventional offices. The results showed overall that there is a significantly higher incidence of reported headaches among staff working in open plan offices compared with those in conventional offices. Problems of eye irritation and URT complaints are found to be most common among staff in open plan offices, but only when they are air conditioned and have poor daylight penetration. Women are the chief complainants. The problems are not strongly age dependent.
Describes a case study of the NIOSH investigation of the 101 Marietta Tower in Atlanta, USA, a high rise office building suffering from sick building syndrome. Concludes that the use of conventional industrial hygiene approaches for conducting indoor air quality investigations will in most cases by non-productive. States that first efforts should be directed toward understanding and evaluating the operation of the building's HVAC system to determine that enough outdoor air is provided. Distributing a follow-up questionnaire to the occupants is also important.
Describes monitoring of an office building where sick building syndrome symptoms had been reported. Data were taken under two different ventilation rates. Outside air flow, temperature, relative humidity, odour perception, microbial burden, particulate mass, formaldehyde and other organics, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide were all measured. In no case did levels exceed current health standards for outdoor air, and none of the single contaminants was responsible for the symptoms.
States that heat stress decreases the chance of survival for the elderly and sick. Cites examples of an eightfold increase in expected mortality for persons over 85 years and threefold for those 50-54 years old. Suggests that chronic degenerative disease in the elderly, certain therapeutic drugs and lack of acclimatization are additional risk factors.
In order to determine the impact of heat waves on nursing home occupants and the efficacy of air conditioning in reducing them, a study investigated patterns of mortality in eleven air conditioned and nine un-air conditioned nursing homes in New York City. On the basis of the findings, recommends that nursing homes and other institutions for the elderly located in climates like that of New York City be required to provide air conditioning.
Describes a study which was aimed at investigating whether relations between symptoms of sick building syndrome and measured environmental factors existed within state of the art air conditioned buildings with satisfactory maintenance programmes expected to provide a healthy indoor environment. Studied five buildings, using a questionnaire followed by a detailed environmental survey.
Describes how workers at altitude are subject to hypoxia, which impairs the ability to sleep, mental performance, productivity and general well, being. Discusses the effectiveness of injecting oxygen into the air conditioning systems for these workers, which has the effect of reducing the equivalent altitude. Several studies have been made to test oxygen enrichment and have shown improvements in sleep quality and cognitive function. The fire hazard is less than in air at sea level.
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