Implementing Health-Protective Features and Practices in Buildings Workshop Proceedings: Federal Facilities Council Technical Report #148 (2005) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Health-Protective Features and Practices in Buildings--James E. Woods
3 Health-Protective Features and Practices in Buildings--James E. Woods
Pages 21-38
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 21... ...
.2 The five functional categories of buildings addressed are: residential, educational, health care, office and mercantile, public assembly and worship. The industrial building category is not discussed because exposures of workers to indoor environmental stressors3 in industrial facilities are typically considered to be significantly different than exposures of occupants to indoor environmental stressors in nonindustrial facilities.
|
From page 22... ...
A summary of characteristics for four types of "commercial" and four types of residential buildings is shown in Table 3.1. The four functional categories of "commercial" buildings were selected because they represent a significant percentage of the existing building stock (i.e., note that with the warehouse and "vacant" categories from the total population, these four categories represent more than 50 percent of the total)
|
From page 23... ...
23 the Median Age (years) 24.5 35.5 29.5 09.5 32.5 40 35 50 40 30 from Types )
|
From page 24... ...
For the commercial buildings shown in Table 3.1, the ratios of total occupants to employees range from approximately 1:1 for offices, to 4:1 in educational facilities, to 7:1 for health care facilities, to more than 50:1 in some public assembly buildings. Based on the findings that the population spends approximately 90 percent of its time indoors, the concept of continuous degradation was used to project initial estimates of the probabilities of exposures in "healthy" and "sick" residences and commercial buildings [27]
|
From page 25... ...
The large number of stakeholders5 and their diverse interests complicate efforts to achieve a consensus approach in addressing potential means or methods to improve indoor environmental quality. Thus, a fundamental issue is: how should the changing drivers and priorities of the stakeholders be accommodated while advancing the health-protective features and practices in building design, construction, and operations?
|
From page 26... ...
. With regard to preparing for extraordinary incidents, and with few exceptions, the current position in the private and public sectors is to wait until regulations are promulgated or federal money is allocated before additional costs are invested to improve preparedness or responsiveness, unless the interventions can be justified by projections of improved health, occupant performance, or productivity.
|
From page 27... ...
These standards and guidelines, which are generally developed from consensus processes involving professional experience together with review and interpretation of available literature, provide guidance pertaining to several of the drivers shown in Figure 3.1. Like building codes, guidance on control for health effects is rarely provided in building standards and guidelines.
|
From page 28... ...
This extended model, shown in Figure 3.2, is used here as a focus for discussion of current knowledge regarding criteria and measurements of exposure, human response, occupant performance, productivity, and safety and security. Exposures Four sets of exposures are typically considered within the physical factors for indoor environmental control purposes: thermal, contaminant, lighting, and acoustics.
|
From page 29... ...
Human responses are influenced not only by the physical factors (i.e., exposures) but also by other sets of human factors (i.e., personal factors, social factors)
|
From page 30... ...
. As demonstrated recently, fear and insecurity in occupied spaces are demotivating factors and are likely to have significant effects on occupant performance if not controlled.
|
From page 31... ...
pertains to these safety and security issues. Moreover, feedback from government agency and private-sector owners, and other stakeholders, reveals that costeffective solutions are needed that can be justified based on improved occupant performance and productivity during normal conditions as well as preparing for health and safety responses during extraordinary incidents.
|
From page 32... ...
Design or peak loads are imposed within the basic zones of control for relatively short periods of time during normal conditions. For example, design summer and winter conditions for thermal loads are typically assumed to occur for less than 5 percent of the year [67]
|
From page 33... ...
Although a preliminary set of field studies [68] reveal that the frequencies of occupant discomfort complaints and symptoms of sick building syndrome are not dissimilar to those in other commercial buildings, concerns from consulting engineers and contractors have been expressed that the pathways from contaminated surfaces in unducted floor plenums to the breathing levels of occupants is much shorter than in conventional systems.
|
From page 34... ...
Lack of Credible Data Financial and technical decision makers have for many years questioned the quality of data that purport to relate the benefits and costs of indoor environmental exposures to health effects. The credibility barriers include: · A dearth of peer-reviewed scientific studies based on statistically valid experimental designs that test the relationships between measured indoor environmental exposures and measured health consequences.
|
From page 35... ...
For more than 40 years, he has practiced, taught, and conducted research in subjects related to indoor environmental quality, human responses, energy utilization, and productivity in office buildings, public assembly and monumental buildings, hospitals, schools, residences, laboratories, and
|
From page 36... ...
1993. Rational building performance and prescriptive criteria for improved indoor environmental quality.
|
From page 37... ...
1998. An extension of a rational model for evaluating human responses, occupant performance and productivity.
|
From page 38... ...
2002. Medical cost savings obtained through asthma management programs and environmental trigger avoidance.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.