Analysis of Health Effects Associated with Indoor Environmental Quality in a Sample of U.S. Office Buildings

摘要

Episodes of nonspecific health complaints from workers in office and commercial buildings have been reported for over 30 years. Yet the factors responsible for these symptom complaints, sometimes called sick building syndrome (SBS) or building-related symptoms (BRS), have not been clearly identified. It is now clear that the publicized buildings with such complaints are only the visible part of a larger phenomenon - studies of representative U.S. office buildings show that over 40% of indoor workers experience one or more frequent work-related symptoms in their buildings (Brightman, Wallace et al. 1999). These potential adverse effects of indoor work environments are of public health importance because the population potentially exposed is large. Approximately 89 million workers in the U.S., almost 70% of the workforce, work in indoor environments (Mendell, Fisk et al. 2002). Researchers have estimated that among the 35-60 million workers experiencing one or more weekly building-related symptoms, improved indoor environmental conditions could prevent this in 8-30 million workers each year (Mendell, Fisk et al. 2002). To learn more about risk factors for BRS, we analyzed data from the largest available study of U.S. office workers, the Building Assessment and Survey Evaluation (BASE) Study from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which involved a representative sample of 100 buildings and 4,326 workers.