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Recent statistics report that most US citizens spend 90% of their life span indoors, also in other industrialised countries most people also spend the same amount of time inside buildings. During this time the nature of the enclosed environment directly affects our health, quality of life, and productivity.
Unacceptable IAQ has been found to affect occupant health, leading to illness and even death. Airborne infectious agents, such as the bacteria Tuberculosis and Legionnaire's Disease, cause infection as the result of inhaling the organism. Thus, control of indoor air quality is critical to protecting building occupants from such infections. Asthmatic and allergic reactions have many causes, including exposure to gases, pollen, particulate matter and microorganisms. Health effects of indoor pollution include the following:
- Infectious disease: flu, cold, pneumonia (Tuberculosis, Legionnaire's Disease, Pontiac
Fever);
- Cancer, other genetic toxicity, teratogenicity (ecotoxicity);
- Asthma and allergy;
- Central nervous system (CNS), skin, gastrointestinal (GI), respiratory, circulatory,
musculoskeletal and other systemic effects; and,Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) - commonly defined as any of several symptoms that appear
associated with occupancy of a particular building but not clinically determined to be
associated with a specific cause.
Unacceptable indoor air quality also affects the ability of employees to properly perform their jobs . This effect ranges from impacts on long-term job performance to short-term absence, and to distractions and discomforts that impair cognitive thinking. While it is hard to make a case directly from available evidence, much indirect evidence suggests that poor indoor air quality raises the cost of the U.S. workforce. Such indirect evidence from various studies includes death, job injury, asthma, illness, doctor visits, days absent, task performance and reduced attention span.
One study placed the annual cost of IAQ problems in U.S. buildings between $10 Billion and
$100 Billion (Fisk and Rosenfeld, 1998). These amounts are comprised of direct costs of health care, lost work time and lost worker productivity, lost rents and lost learning or commercial opportunities. Information below depicts the magnitude of the potential economic benefits of improved IAQ associated with these cost estimates.
Estimated potential productivity gains from improvements in indoor
environments (Fisk and Rosenfeld, 1998).
Source of
Productivity Gain
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Strength of Evidence
|
US Annual Savings or
Productivity Gain
|
|
Respiratory disease
|
Strong
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$6 - $19 billion
|
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Allergies and asthma
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Moderate to Strong
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$1 - $4 billion
|
|
Sick building syndrome
symptoms
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Moderate to Strong
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$10 - $20 billion
|
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Worker performance
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Moderate to Strong
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$12 - $125 billion
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Total Range
|
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$29 - $168 billion
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Geometric mean |
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$70 billion
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