Indoor Air Cartoon Journal, October 2018, Volume 1, #29

A conducive environment is essential for people working in an office environment to maximize their intellectual skills. Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) could make office environment unconducive for its users. Sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms caused by poor IAQ could make it difficult for affected office workers to concentrate or make better use of their cognitive skills. SBS symptoms include eye, nose and throat irritation, dry mucous membrane irritation, skin irritation, mental fatigue, headache, cough, airway infection, wheezing, itching, hypersensitivity, nausea, dizziness, etc. The inability to concentrate or make better use of cognitive skills when needed will lead to low performance and productivity.

The effect of poor IAQ in reducing performance and productivity is envisaged to be more evident at workplace where high level of concentration and cognitive skills are required. The low performance and productivity at such workplace could have high financial loss implication. The highlighted effects of poor IAQ begs the question, does it make economic sense to give healthy IAQ condition a priority at workplace?

Do you want to know more about this topic? Read Nishihara et al. (2014) and Wargocki et al. (1999) papers.