The Impact of Working in a Green Certified Building on Cognitive Function and Health.

Thirty years of public health research have demonstrated that improved indoor environmental quality is associated with better health outcomes. Recent research has demonstrated an impact of the indoor environment on cognitive function. We recruited 109 participants from 10 high-performing buildings (i.e. buildings surpassing the ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2010 ventilation requirement and with low total volatile organic compound concentrations) in five U.S. cities. In each city, buildings were matched by week of assessment, tenant, type of worker and work functions. A key distinction between the matched buildings was whether they had achieved green certification. Workers were administered a cognitive function test of higher order decision-making performance twice during the same week while indoor environmental quality parameters were monitored. Workers in green certified buildings scored 26.4% (95% CI: [12.8%, 39.7%]) higher on cognitive function tests, controlling for annual earnings, job category and level of schooling, and had 30% fewer sick building symptoms than those in non-certified buildings. These outcomes may be partially explained by IEQ factors, including thermal conditions and lighting, but the findings suggest that the benefits of green certification standards go beyond measureable IEQ factors. We describe a holistic "buildingomics" approach for examining the complexity of factors in a building that influence human health.

[1]  Heather M Stapleton,et al.  Linking PBDEs in house dust to consumer products using X-ray fluorescence. , 2008, Environmental science & technology.

[2]  Adrian Covaci,et al.  After the PBDE Phase-Out: A Broad Suite of Flame Retardants in Repeat House Dust Samples from California , 2012, Environmental science & technology.

[3]  Joseph G. Allen,et al.  Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments , 2015, Environmental health perspectives.

[4]  Refrigerating,et al.  Ventilation for acceptable indoor air quality : ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2013 , 2013 .

[5]  John Vasselli,et al.  Impact of VOCs on decision making and productivity , 2013 .

[6]  K. Sexton,et al.  Indoor air pollution: a public health perspective. , 1983, Science.

[7]  Helena Jahncke,et al.  Open-plan office noise: the susceptibility and suitability of different cognitive tasks for work in the presence of irrelevant speech. , 2012, Noise & health.

[8]  Heakyung C. Yoon.  Differences in performance with different background sound and ambient noise in three open office plans , 2000 .

[9]  Armin Rudd,et al.  Ventilation System Effectiveness and Tested Indoor Air Quality Impacts , 2014 .

[10]  W. Fisk,et al.  Effects of ventilation rate per person and per floor area on perceived air quality, sick building syndrome symptoms, and decision-making. , 2015, Indoor air.

[11]  Jill Breysse,et al.  Health Outcomes and Green Renovation of Affordable Housing , 2011, Public health reports.

[12]  J. Spengler,et al.  Health Benefits of Green Public Housing: Associations With Asthma Morbidity and Building-Related Symptoms. , 2015, American journal of public health.

[13]  Standard Ashrae.  Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy , 1992 .

[14]  William J. Fisk,et al.  Effect of temperature on task performance in officeenvironment , 2006 .

[15]  Usha Satish,et al.  Environmental Perceptions and Health before and after Relocation to a Green Building. , 2016, Building and environment.

[16]  Gary Adamkiewicz,et al.  Indoor air quality in green vs conventional multifamily low-income housing. , 2014, Environmental science & technology.

[17]  S. Rappaport.  Implications of the exposome for exposure science , 2011, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.

[18]  S Streufert,et al.  Improvements in simulated real‐world relevant performance for patients with seasonal allergic rhinitis: impact of desloratadine , 2004, Allergy.

[19]  P. Fanger,et al.  The effects of outdoor air supply rate in an office on perceived air quality, sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms and productivity. , 2000, Indoor air.

[20]  Sato Honma,et al.  Repeated exposures to daytime bright light increase nocturnal melatonin rise and maintain circadian phase in young subjects under fixed sleep schedule. , 2006, American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology.

[21]  Usha Satish,et al.  Economic, Environmental and Health Implications of Enhanced Ventilation in Office Buildings , 2015, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[22]  Joseph G. Allen,et al.  Green Buildings and Health , 2015, Current Environmental Health Reports.

[23]  Mary Foley,et al.  Impact of LEED-Certified Affordable Housing on Asthma in the South Bronx , 2013, Progress in community health partnerships : research, education, and action.

[24]  Martin Belusko,et al.  Drivers and barriers to heat stress resilience. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[25]  Sherry L Dixon,et al.  Moving into green healthy housing. , 2015, Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP.

[26]  R. Ulrich.  View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. , 1984, Science.

[27]  Siegfried Streufert,et al.  Simulation-Based Assessment of Managerial Competence: Reliability and Validity. , 1988 .

[28]  Charles J. Weschler,et al.  Changes in indoor pollutants since the 1950s , 2009 .

[29]  D. Dijk,et al.  Blue-enriched white light in the workplace improves self-reported alertness, performance and sleep quality. , 2008, Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health.

[30]  Robert Ries,et al.  Building design and performance: A comparative longitudinal assessment of a Children's hospital , 2014 .

[31]  W. Fisk,et al.  Is CO2 an Indoor Pollutant? Direct Effects of Low-to-Moderate CO2 Concentrations on Human Decision-Making Performance , 2012, Environmental health perspectives.

[32]  P. T. Stone,et al.  A model for the explanation of discomfort and pain in the eye caused by light , 2009 .

[33]  Nuno Alexandre Faria Da Silva.  Building certification schemes and the quality of indoor environment , 2015 .

[34]  Hannu Rintamäki,et al.  High indoor CO2 concentrations in an office environment increases the transcutaneous CO2 level and sleepiness during cognitive work , 2016, Journal of occupational and environmental hygiene.

[35]  Amanjeet Singh,et al.  Effects of green buildings on employee health and productivity. , 2010, American journal of public health.

[36]  Charles A Czeisler,et al.  High sensitivity of the human circadian melatonin rhythm to resetting by short wavelength light. , 2003, The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism.

[37]  Hal Levin,et al.  Improving the health of workers in indoor environments: priority research needs for a national occupational research agenda. , 2002, American journal of public health.

[38]  P. O. Fanger,et al.  Thermal comfort: analysis and applications in environmental engineering, , 1972 .