Knowledge about gender-relate exposures is rare. Therefore, based on a patient collective in environmental medicine gender specific aspects of surrounding exposures were investigated. Questionnaire data of 656 women and 501 men, who have to be affected by environment-related health disorders were retrospectively analyzed. Gender specific differences and risk factors were determined by frequency distributions. Significant differences between women and men could be shown for exposures at home and workplace, for behavioral risk factors, and for health effects.
Since 1987, in Germany advisory centers for environmental medicine were founded. In the present study the relevance of indoor air problems in a patient collective in environmental medicine was investigated. Questionnaire data of 772 patients, who consulted the former Consulting Center of Environmental Medicine (CEM) of the Medical Institute of Environmental Hygiene at the Heinrich Heine-University Duesseldorf because of the suspicion of environment-related health disorders, were retrospectively examined regarding exposures and health effects.
Microbial sampling was used to study indoor air quality in a building where the employees had complained about IAQ for many years. In addition, the symptoms and complaints of the employees working in the building were surveyed by MM40-questionnaire. Workers complained about dust, dirt, dry, stuffy air and unpleasant odor. Tiredness and irritation of upper respiratory tracts and eyes were the most common symptoms. IgG antibodies against microbes commonly found in water damaged buildings, were determined from the serum samples of the employees.
Current remedial actions to buildings with indoor-environmental problems do not seem to decrease efficiently residents’ symptoms typical of the sick building syndrome (SBS). Apart from potentially unsuccessful renovations (cases), the cause could be that
We studies the conditions in special old age nursing homes and elderly health care facilities in Japanespecially in a region with a cold climate. A questionnaire survey for all special old age nursing homes and elderly health care facilities in Sapporo and Fukuoka City, and Hokkaido, Saitama, Kanagawa, and Osaka Prefecture, and Tokyo Metropolis was performed. The main questionnaire asks about heating, air-cooling, ventilation systems, sanitary systems and indoor air quality including bio-aerosol and odours.
Diagnosing occupant complaints is not an easy task. The following article is a guide for engineers and owners confronted with hot/cold problems. It advises how to evaluate the occupant's complaint (with seven questions), then to review the HVAC equipment performances for a proper operation, to make load calculations, to review zoning conflicts and draft problems, to measure the humidity level, and the omni-directional drafts.
A questionnaire on e.g. building characteristics including dampness, and allergic symptomsamong children from 8 918 homes was carried out in the year 2000. 18-24 months later, 6professional inspectors visited 390 of the homes and made inspections and measurements.Questionnaire reports on building characteristics, type of ventilation system, and buildingmaterials were in good agreement with observations from the inspectors (K=0.68-0.87). Individualkappa-values for the inspectors varied in the range of 0.33-0.96.
In order to identify the effects of various kinds of floor materials and that of humidity on theconcentration of mite allergens in houses of allergy patients, measurements were carried outin two houses near Tokyo in August, November and December 2001. Temperature, humidityand mite allergens, Der p 1, Der f 1 and Der 2, were measured and a questionnaire survey wasconducted.
For historical and demographical reasons, in many European countries, an important part of educational building must be retrofitted. These retrofitting must be carried out in a context of reduction of greenhouse emissions and energy consumption.Among different targets for retrofitting, there are the improvement of indoor environment. In fact, educational buildings are particularly vulnerable to indoor environment problems. Studies have indicated a correlation between the way educational buildings are designed, or retrofitted, and student performance.
A questionnaire study (on ventilation, surface materials, heating and cooling) was performed on 3562 employees working in 32 buildings without previously known indoor air problems.The associations between symptom prevalence and building characteristics are reported in this paper.
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