Occupant health and productivity : an Australian perspective

The issue of whether improved building services such as air quality, provision of daylight, thermal comfort etc, have a positive impact on the health and productivity of building occupants is still an open question. There is significant anecdotal evidence supporting the notion that health and productivity of building occupants can be improved by improving the quality of the indoor environment, but there are actually few published quantitative studies to substantiate this contention. This paper reports on a comprehensive review of the worldwide literature which relates health of building occupants with the different aspects of the indoor environment which are believed to impact of these issues, with a particular focus on studies in Australia, The paper analyses the existing research and identifies the key deficiencies in our existing understanding of this problem. The key focus of this research is office and school buildings, but the scope of the literature surveyed includes all commercial buildings, including industrial buildings. There is a notable absence of detailed studies on this link in Australian buildings, although there are studies on thermal comfort, and a number of studies on indoor air quality in Australia, which do not make the connection to health and productivity. Many international studies have focused on improved lighting, and in particular the provision of daylight in buildings, but again there are few studies in Australia which focus in this area.