Indoor environment quality (IEQ) factors

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Question

What established or possible indoor environment quality (IEQ) factors exist? What kind of dose-responses have been defined for them?

Answer

Indoor environment quality (IEQ) factors(-)

Obs	Exposure agent	Response	Response metric	Exposure route	Exposure unit	ERF parameter	ERF	Significance	Description/Reference
1	Visible dampness and/or mold or mold odor	Respiratory health effect		Inhalation	yes/no	OR	several, see Note 1		Note 1
2	Dampness or mold, minimal	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.39(1.02-1.89)		Shenassa et al. 2007
3	Dampness or mold, moderate	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.44(1.08-1.92)		Shenassa et al. 2007
4	Dampness or mold, extensive	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.34(0.97-1.85)		Shenassa et al. 2007
5	Dampness and/or mold	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.76 (1.17-2.66)	0.0056	Hopton and Hunt (1996)
6	Dampness and/or mold	Self-assessed health poorer							Note 2
7	Living in a low income household	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.61 (1.06-2.44)	0.0231	Hopton and Hunt (1996)
8	Respondent unemployed	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.55 (0.99-2.42)	0.0483	Hopton and Hunt (1996)
9	Living in flat instead of house	Morbidity	Morbidity		yes/no	RR	1.57		Fanning 1967
10	Floor of living	Psychoneurotic disorder	Incidence		1st vs. ground	RR	1.06		Fanning 1967 (RR calculated from Table 8)
11	Floor of living	Psychoneurotic disorder	Incidence		2nd vs. ground	RR	1.74		Fanning 1967 (RR calculated from Table 8)
12	Floor of living	Psychoneurotic disorder	Incidence		3rd vs. ground	RR	2.02		Fanning 1967 (RR calculated from Table 8)
13	Wood smoke	Respiratory health effect		Inhalation					Note 3, Note 4
14	Wood smoke	Irritation of eyes and mucosa
15	Wood smoke	Respiratory health effect		Inhalation
16	Wood smoke	Odour problems		Inhalation
17	Wood smoke	Comfort of housing
18	Wood smoke	Chronic infections		Inhalation
19	Wood smoke	Cancer		Inhalation
20	Environmental tobacco smoke	Lung cancer	Morbidity	Inhalation	yes/no	RR	1.21 (1.13-1.30)		Note 7
21	Environmental tobacco smoke	Ischaemic heart disease	Mortality	Inhalation	yes/no	RR	1.27 (1.19-1.36)		Note 7
22	Environmental tobacco smoke	Asthma	Morbidity	Inhalation	yes/no	RR	1.97 (1.19-3.25)		Age >21; Note 7
23	Environmental tobacco smoke	Asthma	Morbidity	Inhalation	yes/no	RR	1.32 (1.24-1.41)		Age <14; Note 7
24	Environmental tobacco smoke	Lung infections	Morbidity	Inhalation	yes/no	RR	1.55 (1.42-1.69)		Age <2; Note 7
25	Environmental tobacco smoke	Middle ear inflammation	Morbidity	Inhalation	yes/no	RR	1.38 (1.21-1.56)		Age <3; Note 7
26	Environmental tobacco smoke	Irritation of eyes and mucosa
27	Environmental tobacco smoke	Odour problems		Inhalation
28	Environmental tobacco smoke	Comfort of housing
29	Environmental tobacco smoke	Chronic infections		Inhalation
30	VOCs	Irritation symptoms
31	CO2	Headache		Inhalation
32	CO2	Tiredness		Inhalation
33	CO	Headache		Inhalation
34	CO	Tiredness		Inhalation
35	Insufficient air exchange	Headache
36	Insufficient air exchange	Tiredness
37	Insufficient air exchange	Decreased ability to concentrate
38	Insufficient air exchange	Feeling of fug
39	Thermal conditions; heat	Tiredness
40	Thermal conditions; heat	Decreased ability to concentrate
41	Thermal conditions; heat	Increased respiratory symptoms
42	Thermal conditions; heat	Feeling of dryness
43	Thermal conditions; heat	Comfort of housing
44	Thermal comfort (draught or cold)	Mental health problems							Note 2
45	Thermal comfort (heat or cold)	Depression							Note 2
46	Thermal comfort (heat or cold; general perception of thermal problems)	Self-assessed health poorer							Note 2
47	Thermal conditions (cold)	Feeling of draught
48	Thermal conditions (cold)	Comfort of housing
49	Noise	Hearing injury
50	Noise	Sleep disturbance
51	Noise	Stress
52	Noise	Comfort of housing
53	Proximity to traffic	Mortality
54	Radon	Lung cancer							Note 5
55	Relative humidity
56	PM2.5	Mortality							Note 3
57	PM2.5	Chronic bronchitis
58	PM2.5	Lung cancer
59	Reduced space (house/flat)	Depression							Note 2
60	Reduced space (house/flat)	Mental health problems							Note 2
61	Reduced space (house/flat)	Self-assessed health poorer							Note 2
62	Garden	Depression							Note 2
63	Floor level	Mental health problems							Note 2
64	Overcrowding	Mental health problems							Note 2
65	Overcrowding	Self assessed health poorer							Note 2
66	Sensory IAQ	Various health and well-being parameters
67	Maternal employment	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		no/yes	OR	2.82 (1.59-5.00)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
68	No. of house moves in previous 5 years	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		2-3 vs. 0-1	OR	1.32 (0.77-2.27)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
69	No. of house moves in previous 5 years	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		4 or more vs. 0-1	OR	2.81 (1.59-4.96)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
70	Overcrowded accomodation	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	2.16 (1.27-3.70)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
71	Accomodation	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		Council vs. owned/mortgarged	OR	7.65 (3.30-17.75)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
72	Accomodation	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		Rented vs. owned/mortgarged	OR	4.47 (1.82-10.98)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
73	Social Network Score < 21	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	3.09 (1.84-5.19)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
74	Paternal employement	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		no/yes	OR	2.33 (1.43-3.77)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
75	Car use	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		no/yes	OR	2.33 (1.41-3.83)		Sidebotham et al. 2002
76	No. of deprivation indicators	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		1 vs. 0	OR	9.58 (2.64-34.81)		Note 6; Sidebotham et al. 2002
77	No. of deprivation indicators	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		2 vs. 0	OR	23.44 (6.61-83.15)		Note 6; Sidebotham et al. 2002
78	No. of deprivation indicators	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		3 vs. 0	OR	59.30 (17.52-200.76)		Note 6; Sidebotham et al. 2002
79	No. of deprivation indicators	Maltreatment of children	Prevalence		4 vs. 0	OR	111.36 (32.31-383.801)		Note 6; Sidebotham et al. 2002
80	House dampness	Problems in energy (according Nottingham Health Profile)	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	15.8 (8.3-23.3)		Packer et al. 1994
81	House dampness	Social isolation (according Nottingham Health Profile)	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	10.1 (3.7-16.5)		Packer et al. 1994
82	House dampness	Problems in sleep (according Nottingham Health Profile)	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	9.3 (1.7-16.9)		Packer et al. 1994
83	House dampness	Problems in emotional reactions (according Nottingham Health Profile)	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	5.6 (-2.0-13.2)		Packer et al. 1994
84	House dampness	Problems in physical mobility (according Nottingham Health Profile)	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	3.9 (-1.8-9.6)		Packer et al. 1994
85	House dampness	Perception of pain (according Nottingham Health Profile)	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	2.8 (-2.6-8.2)		Packer et al. 1994
86	Smoking	Chronic respiratory disease	Prevalence	Inhalation	yes/no	OR	4.36 (2.46-7.74)	0.000	Blackman et al. (2001)
87	Dampness	Chronic respiratory disease	Prevalence	Inhalation	yes/no	OR	2.10 (1.36-3.50)	0.004	Blackman et al. (2001)
88	Unwaged household	Chronic respiratory disease	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	1.73 (1.24-2.41)	0.001	Blackman et al. (2001)
89	Unsafe neighborhood	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	2.35 (1.41-3.92)	0.001	Blackman et al. (2001)
90	Draughts	Mental health problems	Prevalence		yes/no	OR	2.28 (1.41-3.69)	0.001	Blackman et al. (2001)
91	Rehousing	Palpitations/breathlessness	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	-7.8	0.08	Pettricrew et al. 2009
92	Rehousing	Persistent cough	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	-2.1	0.55	Pettricrew et al. 2009
93	Rehousing	Painful joints	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	-8.7	0.03	Pettricrew et al. 2009
94	Rehousing	Faints/dizziness	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	-5.7	0.08	Pettricrew et al. 2009
95	Rehousing	Difficulty in sleeping	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	-17.4	<0.0001	Pettricrew et al. 2009
96	Rehousing	Sinus trouble/catarh	Prevalence		yes/no	Percentage unit change	-4.7	0.20	Pettricrew et al. 2009
97	Housing tenure	Poor self-rated health	Prevalence		renter vs. owner	OR	1.48 (1.31-1.68)		Pollack et al. 2004

Note 1 ERF of indoor dampness on respiratory health effects

Note 2 WP6 well-being report (password-protected)

Note 3 ERF of PM2.5 on mortality in general population

Note 4 Concentration-response to PM2.5

Note 5 Health impact of radon in Europe

Note 6 Indicators of deprivation: overcrowded accommodation, accomodation ownership, paternal employment, car use

Note 7 ERF of several environmental pollutions

Rationale

Precision and Plausability of Hopton and Hunt (1996)

- Reporting bias: Perhaps ít´s difficult to use subjective data due to reporting bias. This is because people may answer in different ways or they don´t answer at all. In addition, people experience household conditions differently.

- Possible confounding variables such as sociodemographic and economic variables, e.g. age and income, were controlled.

- Selection bias: The sample is clearly not representative of the general population and therefore the analysis focuses on differences within the sample. Thus it´s worth considering if the results can be generalized to whole population.

Precision and Plausability of Sidebotham et al. (2002)

- Maltreatment is defined and measured as registration for physical injury, neglect, sexual abuse, emotional abuse. That way all maltreatments, which are not registered are not taken into account.

- The measurement of the social class is not too accurate, because no allowance for nonworking mothers and no parental social class allocated for single mothers can be applied.

- The nature of relationship with child maltreatment is complex (confounder, cultural values, etc). That causes problems in finding an association or causality between an exposure factor and maltreatment. Moreover, maltreatment has different definition in different cultural groups.

- The parental income is not measured directly, but car ownership as a proxy indicator and the receipt of welfare payment are used.

- Controlling for social factors was done.

- Large amount of prospectively collected data are used in in the study, which is a clear strength.

- The participation is lower among the maltreated group, which might influence the outcome of the statistical analysis or bias the results of the study.

- The risk of social bias and no way of measuring the effect of such bias. A social bias can be defined as a prejudgement of a specific social group. In this case, it might be that those, who collected the data might have expectations, that parents which lower or higher social background are more prone to maltreat their child and let this expectation influence their interpretation of the results. This is not very likely here, though, because all parameters which were used for the analysis can me measured and there is not much freedome for interpretation.

Precision and Plausability of Packer et al. (1994)

- health problems: possibility of headache, mental problems, emotional reactions, social isolation and pain.

- social factors: unemployment, single parent, lone adult and unemployment with sickness or disability

- lifestyle: consumption of alcohol and smoking

Precision and Plausability of Blackman et al. (2001)

- Bias in respondents answers to realistically evaluate their and family members health

- Some housings that where targets on first survey were demolished during second survey.

- No data from comparison neighbourhood without renewal to back up observed health changes after renewal program.

- Relationship between dampness, draughts and mental health is uncertain, because the mechanism is unknown

- Multivariate analysis using regression model was used to control variables, such as economic, housing, respiratory and mental health related to increase plausability which increases the plausibility of ERF.

Precision and Plausability of D. Fanning (1967)

- The study is quite old. Probably today many other parameters in addition to those used in the article would be measured when conducting this kind of study.

- The study has considered the difference between children and adults.

- The study has not considered the differences between different flats and houses. They have only categories for houses and flats but the differences between houses are not considered. This may cause bias to the study.

Precision and Plausability of Petticrew et al. (2009)

- Data collection at the three occassions in the intervention group before moving, one year after moving and 2 years after moving to the social housing gives strenght to the study in analysing changes in the housing circumstances and in neighbourhood.

- Recruitment into the study was discussed by the landlord to the tenant once they have accepted the housing offer which dosn't gives the RSL direct contact with the participant though this serves as a way of good recruitments but it dose not guarantee the authenticity of the data collected. e.g RSL couldn't supply the number of people who refuse to participate in the study to the SHARP research team.

- Broad range of adult household categories in the intervention group which was used as a base for recruiting the comparism group stenghthen the study. (family households, with children under age of sixteen years, older households where the respondents and adult members of the households were of pensionable age, and adult households with a combination of relationships, including parents with children atleast 16 years of age, people unrelated to one and another and couples )

- Qualitative and quantitative findings were only presented for 1 year(wave 2) in the study which dose not proof if the effects are sustained and probabely if differences in health outcomes occur at two years in the intervention and comparism groups.

- recollection bias may occur during interview if participant in the groups if they can not recall adequately past occurences relating to health, housing and neighbourhood questions after one year and two years of movement to the new house.

- Bias in subsequent analysis can also occur if there is any significant changes in the groups associated with self reported health.

Precision and Plausibility of Pollack et al. (2004)

The study controls some factors which can potentially cause bias in the result, like socioeconomic factors, relation to the neighbours and pollution of the local environment. However, the potential effects of working conditions on the health of the study subjects has not been addressed. In addition, it should be found out whether life style, diet, smoking, and use of alcohol are included it in socioeconomic factors.

See also

http://en.opasnet.org/en-opwiki/index.php?title=Indoor_environment_quality_(IEQ)_factors&oldid=29149

Related files

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Indoor environment quality (IEQ) factors. Opasnet . [1]. Accessed 23 May 2024.