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Association of subjective health symptoms with indoor air quality in European office buildings: The OFFICAIR project |
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| Authors: | Ioannis Sakellaris Dikaia Saraga Corinne Mandin Yvonne de Kluizenaar Serena Fossati Andrea Spinazzè Andrea Cattaneo Victor Mihucz Tamás Szigeti Eduardo de Oliveira Fernandes Krystallia Kalimeri Rosanna Mabilia Paolo Carrer John Bartzis |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Western Macedonia, Kozani, Greece;2. CSTB-Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment, Université Paris Est, Marne-la-Vallée Cedex 2, France;3. The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), The Hague, The Netherlands Contribution: Investigation (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal);4. ISGlobal, Institute for Global Health, Barcelona, Spain;5. Department of Science and High Technology, University of Insubria, Como, Italy;6. Cooperative Research Centre for Environmental Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary;7. National Public Health Center, Budapest, Hungary;8. Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management, Porto, Portugal;9. Department of Biology, Agriculture and Food Science, National Research Council, Roma, Italy Contribution: Investigation (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal);10. Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences-Hospital “L. Sacco”, University of Milan, Milano, Italy |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study was to explore the association between the building-related occupants’ reported health symptoms and the indoor pollutant concentrations in a sample of 148 office rooms, within the framework of the European OFFICAIR research project. A large field campaign was performed in 37 office buildings among eight countries, which included (a) 5-day air sampling of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), aldehydes, ozone, and NO2 (b) collection of information from 1299 participants regarding their personal characteristics and health perception at workplace using online questionnaires. Stepwise and multilevel logistic regressions were applied to investigate associations between health symptoms and pollutant concentrations considering personal characteristics as confounders. Occupants of offices with higher pollutant concentrations were more likely to report health symptoms. Among the studied VOCs, xylenes were associated with general (such as headache and tiredness) and skin symptoms, ethylbenzene with eye irritation and respiratory symptoms, a-pinene with respiratory and heart symptoms, d-limonene with general symptoms, and styrene with skin symptoms. Among aldehydes, formaldehyde was associated with respiratory and general symptoms, acrolein with respiratory symptoms, propionaldehyde with respiratory, general, and heart symptoms, and hexanal with general SBS. Ozone was associated with almost all symptom groups. |
| Keywords: | aldehydes health perception office workers ozone sick building syndrome volatile organic compounds |