Relations Between Indoor Environment Characteristics and Well-Being of Occupants at Individual Level C.-A. Roulet 1 , F. Foradini 2 , Ph. Bluyssen 3 and C. Cox 3 1 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, LESO-PB, Station 18, CH 1015 Lausanne email: claude.roulet@epfl.ch http://lesowww.epfl.ch 2 E4Tech Sàrl, Lausanne, Switzerland 3 TNO Environment and Geosciences, Delft, the Netherlands Summary: Within the European research project HOPE, 97 apartment buildings and 67 office buildings were investigated using checklists addressing the building characteristics and self-administered questionnaires to the occupants asking their perceived comfort (thermal visual, acoustical and indoor air quality) and health (sick building syndrome symptoms and allergies). More than 2700 questionnaires were collected in dwellings and more than 6000 in offices. Statistical interpretation of these individual questionnaires have shown several correlations between the presence of SBS symptoms or comfort complaints and the characteristics of the indoor environment. Keywords: indoor environment, comfort, health, buildings 1 Introduction In developed countries, human beings spend most of their lifetime in buildings. Therefore, the building environment has a paramount influence on their health. Field studies have shown several correlations between occupant's well being and buildings characteristics at the building level (see for example [1, 2]). It has been found interesting to look at the well being of building occupants in relationship with their individual environment. 2 Method A multi-disciplinary study was performed in 164 buildings (97 apartment buildings and 67 office buildings) of which approximately 75% have been designed to be energy-efficient, and 50% proved to be so. This investigation has been carried out in nine European countries. Three kinds of screening methods were used [3]; which are listed in detail in [4]. Collected data (about 420 figures in each office buildings and 550 in apartment buildings) are stored in a database 1 . They were interpreted using basic statistics: sorting groups of individuals having specific characteristics and looking at significant differences between means for other characteristics, and looking at significant correlations between variables in various populations. 3 Results Several results from interpretation at the building level are already published [2, 4, 5]. They allowed 1 It can be downloaded from http://hope.epfl.ch to propose guidelines 2 for designing healthy, comfortable and energy efficient buildings [6, 7]. Only preliminary results from the statistical interpretation at the individual level are available when writing the abstract. Former findings at the building levels are confirmed. In addition, significant differences for SBS symptom were found in relation with environmental tobacco smoke, hours spent at visual display units, and perceived noise. Averages over buildings may hide individual effects. Therefore, we expect more findings or more detailed relations by looking at individual questionnaires. References [1] K. W. Tham, H. C. Willem, in Healthy Buildings, Nat. University of Singapore, Singapore, 2003, pp. 88. [2] N. Johner, C.-A. Roulet, A. Oostra, L. A. Nicol, F. Foradini, in Indoor Air, Beijin, 2005, p. Paper 1.6 43. [3] P. M. Bluyssen, C. Cox, N. Boschi, M. Maroni, G. Raw, C.-A. Roulet, F. Foradini, in Healthy Buildings, Vol. 3, Singapore, 2003, pp. 76. [4] C.-A. Roulet, N. Johner, F. Flourentzou, F. Foradini, in Indoor Air, Beijing, 2005, p. Paper 1.7 41. [5] N. Johner, C.-A. Roulet, F. Foradini, B. Oostra, in Clima 2005, Lausanne, 2005, p. paper 332. [6] C.-A. Roulet, C. Cox, E. d. O. Fernandes, B. Müller, EPFL, LESO, Lausanne, 2005, p. 64. [7] C.-A. Roulet, C. Cox, F. Foradini, in Indoor Air, Beijing, 2005, p. Paper 1.6 44. 2 These guidelines can also be downloaded from http://hope.epfl.ch