Hospitals

Hospitals’ indoor environmental quality (IEQ) impacts on patients’ comfort and well-being. Relationships between IEQ indicators and people’s assessment are often investigated by examining the main IEQ parameters – thermal, visual, and acoustical comfort and indoor air quality – separately. People’s assessment is multi-sensory and balances the positive sensations against the negative. To estimate it, IEQ models aggregate data from sensor measurements and/or surveys, expressing parameters’ relative importance through regression coefficients.

Occupant exposure to airborne pathogens in buildings can be reduced by a variety of means, including adequate provision of outdoor air by ventilation. This is particularly important in buildings, such as hospitals, which may house a higher number of infected individuals relative to the wider population. In tropical Africa, however, there is evidence that new hospitals built with air-conditioning to cope with the extreme heat are poorly ventilated compared to existing hospitals that were designed to be naturally ventilated.

Radon gas is now considered to be a health hazard when found in excessive amounts in the builtenvironment. The levels of radon vary greatly, with some geographical areas having very highlevels. In the United Kingdom, Northamptonshire was declared an Affected Area in 1992, and itwas at this stage that our group first started studying radon levels and the steps taken to reducethem.The radon levels both before and after remediation were studied, together with the number ofoccupants of affected rooms, and their pattern of occupation.