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 orkers in poorly ventilated offices are
twice as likely to report the symptoms of sick building syndrome (SBS) as
are employees in a well-ventilated environment, a new Cornell University
study finds.
 The researchers say they find no
link, however, between SBS complaints and almost three dozen potential irritants
studied, or between the syndrome and age, education, gender, general stress,
positive or negative feelings or a variety of other psychological factors.
They did find mild links to a variety of physical workplace problems, including
sensitivity to odors, feelings of being overworked, migraines, allergies
and, surprisingly, musculoskeletal problems, which indicates that ergonomic
factors play a role in the syndrome.
"These results strongly suggest
that symptom reports are not primarily psychological in origin, which some
researchers have suggested," says ergonomist Alan Hedge, director of
the Human Factors Laboratory in Cornell's College of Human Ecology and coauthor
of the report. "Both the workers with very few symptoms and those with
more intense symptoms show a clear pattern of increased problems by the
end of the day, suggesting that something is making the workers who are
more sensitive feel sick," says Hedge. "They are not simply grumblers
though nothing we've looked at so far seems to be the sole culprit."
The study is among the first to find
that a relatively small buildup of carbon dioxide from human respiration
an indicator of poor ventilation is related to SBS. It is also the first
study to compare employees in similar work environments with no or few symptoms
with those with many symptoms by asking them to keep a daily diary for one
week.
Hedge and research associate William
Erickson first tested four, multistory state office buildings in Trenton,
N.J., hourly, for two to three consecutive days, measuring nearly 36 potential
worker irritants, including light levels, temperature, carbon monoxide,
carbon dioxide, relative humidity, dust mass, carpet dust, dust mite allergens,
suspended particulate counts, nicotine and formaldehyde.
They then collected 1,508 questionnaires
from workers in the buildings concerning their perceptions of ambient conditions,
job stresses, work-related SBS symptoms as well as personal information.
No one irritant was linked to a particular
symptom, even though workers in the study showed a clear pattern of feeling
worse by the end of each day. But Hedge and Erickson found that the odds
of workers reporting specific SBS symptoms were substantially higher when
the carbon dioxide levels were above 650 parts per million.
"This suggests that SBS symptoms
may be associated with building ventilation performance," Hedge says.
Hedge has been studying SBS for more
than 10 years. In 1993 he reported that in a study of 1,324 workers from
nine buildings, SBS symptoms were linked to the amount of man-made mineral
fibers in settled office dust and not to tobacco smoke. In 1996 he reported
that the brighter the office lights, the more often workers reported problems
related to lethargy, tiredness and headaches.
In this latter study, SBS seemed
to be linked to such non-environmental variables as heavy computer use,
gender (women report more problems), job stress, lower job satisfaction
and advancing age. Several of these findings, however, were not supported
by the latest study.
The new study, Sick Building Syndrome
and Office Ergonomics: A Targeted Work Environment Analysis, was funded
by the Center for Indoor Air Research, Linthicum, Md.  |
cornell.edu; http://www.news.cornell.edu or Compuserve: Bill Steele, 72650,565