‘Sick building Syndrome’ a mystery

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 37

‘Sick building Syndrome’ a mystery

From

the College

DOCTOR’S ADVICE

of General Practitioners Workers in airconditioned buildings suffer a variety of symptoms. Various theories have been promoted to explain such industrial health problems, and late last year the “British Medical Journal” carried a report of a study of what the authors call “the sick building syndrome.” A building is “sick” in this sense when its workers complain more of ill-health than would be expected, without an increase in absence from work. Usually the building has full airconditioning. In spite of a good deal of research, no really good explanation of the problem has been found. Some have thought that formaldehyde, from cavity wall insulation, office furniture or carpet adhesive, might be the culprit; others have blamed cigarette smoke, airborne particles, carbon dioxide, bacteria in the air, poor air circulation, and not enough negative ions. The authors wanted to see how common the problem was, and so they studied nine buildings in Britain where the workers were mainly clerical. They found that blocked, itchy, or runny nose; itching, irritable or watering eyes; dry throat or nose; symptoms of work-related asthma; headache; dry skin; and lethargy were all more common in airconditioned buildings, whether or not there was recirculation, and indeed, that the nose, dry throat, headache, lethargy group was even more common among workers in buildings where they was only mechanical ventilation. As many as half of the workers in buildings where there was unnatural ventilation suffered from lethargy. If the aim of airconditioning is to create as natural as possible an environment for workers, the reality falls far short of that ideal. The workforce had occupied several of the buildings for some years, so that “newness” of the environment could not be blamed. Neither could the irritation of smoking in the workplace

be the problem, since the percentage of smokers was the same in even the apparently “healthy” buildings. None of these buildings had urea-formaldehyde insulation, and so formaldehyde could not have been the cause. The symptoms occured in non-humidified as well as humidified airconditioning systems, and so lack of humidity was not to blame. Recirculation of air was not used in all the buildings with the sick building syndrome. Finally, the authors dismiss mass hysteria as a cause. Because the symptoms affect a big proportion of the workforce, they often are not even remarked upon, and are regarded as normal for the worker in that building. Further, the symptoms are rarely severe enough to cause work absenteeism, and so are unlikely to come to the notice of the employer or the medical officer. Headaches and lethargy are common complaints. It might be claimed that the symptoms described are so common that one would expect a high proportion of workers to experience them. Not so, however, for the workers in the naturally ventilated buildings in this study did not have the same experiences. So there is a complex of symptoms affecting the nose, the eyes, and the mucous membranes with headache, dry skin, and lethargy, that happens to workers in airconditioned buildings. For some, the dry skin affects only the hands, but for others all exposed areas are affected — the face, lips and arms, always noticed first by women, who give a clear story of having to use more skin cream after coming to work in such a building. Trials and negative ionisers have proved inconclusive, and a satisfactory preventive programme has not been discovered.