Sick Building Syndrome Essay

The term Sick building syndrome (SBS) was named in 1986 by the World Health Organization (WHO). SBS is also known as "building-related symptoms", “building-illnesses” is a medical condition where people in a building suffer from symptoms of illness or feel unwell for no apparent reason (World Health Organization. n.d.). The main objective of this essay is to determine the association between indoor environmental quality and symptoms of SBS. Data were collected through multifactorial previous studies that included work environment, and symptoms related to SBS. In conclusion, I believe that SBS was caused and contributed by overall indoor environmental factors not only by one.

The main way to identify SBS is the appearance of headache; eye,

To answer this, a two-part experimental study was performed in a sealed, air-conditioned building to determine the impact of ventilation and lighting level on office illness by Sterling E. and Sterling T. (1994). The result pointed that building illness is dependent on building design and operation. After that, Sally S. Shahzad et al. (2016) reported that symptoms of SBS was 28% lower in two air-conditioned buildings when compared with buildings had natural ventilation and displacement ventilation was in operation. According to Sally S. Shahzad et al., this result was consisted with the hypothesis that air conditioning was not responsible for building-related symptoms and also provided the evidence that the lack of control over the thermal environment as the main cause for SBS symptoms. Nevertheless, due to the change in building materials, smoking is forbidden and improvements in ambient air quality, appropriate ventilation and maintenance under ASHRAE standards. So, in 2013, ASHRAE has reactivated 1981 with respect to ventilation rate (ASHRAE 62.1-2013). In support of this, a study suggested that the more ventilation effectiveness, indoor pollutant source control, the less prevalence of SBS symptoms, up to 70-85%, even when it were qualified to the ASHRAE level (Michael G. Apte et al.,