Sick building syndrome: a study of 4373 office workers.

Describes a study of 4373 office employees in 42 different office buildings a 47 ventilation conditions, aimed at highlighting symptoms of sick building syndrome. More symptoms were reported by women and by clerical/secretarial workers. Overall, buildings with ventilation from local or central induction/fan coil units had more symptoms per worker. States that there was however a wide variation between the building sickness indices of buildings within each ventilation category which was only partially explained by differences in jobs and gender. Symptoms increased significantly when the air supply was chilled or humidified. Concludes that design characteristics of buildings and their plant are associated with substantial differences in the reported frequencies of symptoms in workers.