LoginHealth is one of the most powerful reasons for IEQ management, however, the 2 dominant available definitions are not fully fit for purpose. The WHO definition is broad and encompasses all potential IEQ related benefits, but is not quantifiable, while the ASHRAE definition emphasising the absence of harm, is quantifiable, but is not able to capture all aspects of wellbeing. If we want to operationalise the use of health based metrics in the design and assessment of IEQ management strategies, we need a definition of health that covers all IEQ benefits and is quantifiable.
Additionally, the existing quantification methods for health impacts, mostly based on the health adjusted life year (HALY) model, were developed in other fields and therefore not designed to exactly fit the needs of our community. For example, the focus on identification and ranking of risk factors at the societal level in epidemiology or the prevention of serious accidents in occupational health have left open questions related to the impact of peaked exposure vs. constant exposure with similar dose. CR functions extracted from epidemiological studies are often not sufficiently corrected for intercorrelations and therefore not additive. These limitations and uncertainty make it difficult to use these metrics to correctly estimate the expected benefits of a given IEQ management strategy. This project is therefore necessary to propose a definition that is better fit for our needs and identify research needs for neighbouring fields to move forward in facilitating the use of health based indicators in IEQ management rating.
The objectives of this project are to:
- create a operable definition of Health for IEQ management applications
- identify missing links in the interdisciplinary toolkit available to assess the health impact of IEQ management strategies.