The Effects of Thermal Conditions and Indoor Air Quality on Health, Comfort and Cognitive Performance of Students

The Effects of Thermal Conditions and Indoor Air Quality on Health, Comfort and Cognitive Performance of Students Authors: Lia Chatzidiakou, Dejan Mumovic, Julie Dockrell Published by: The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering London, October 2014

Published by: The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, London, October 2014 Copyright ©Built Offsite ISBN 978-0-9930137-3-7

About the authors UCL is ranked fourth in the world’s top ten universities by the QS World University Rankings (2012). More than 4,000 academic and research staff at UCL are dedicated to research and teaching of the highest standards. Nobel prizes have been awarded to 21 former academics and graduates. In the last 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), UCL was rated the best research university in London, and third in the UK overall, for the number of its submissions which were considered of ‘world-leading quality’. UCL is one of the most successful UK universities at attracting funding, with...

Built Offsite preface Built Offsite Ltd is an education construction specialist operating across the UK and is very aware of its responsibility to create optimum learning environments for the benefit of the students making use of these new school facilities. Since its inception Built Offsite has been committed to reducing the energy demand and environmental impact in its design and specification of the school buildings it constructs. As a result of this continued development focus on sustainability the Company routinely provides schools that can achieve a peak heating demands of less than 10...

Executive summary The present review evaluates the strength and consistency of current evidence indicating that there is an association between indoor pollutants and thermal conditions in schools on students’ performance. Moreover, the report examines evidence that air pollution and thermal conditions may have acute and adverse effects on students’ health which can indirectly affect performance, through impaired attendance and discomfort. Current guidelines ensuring adequate IAQ in UK school classrooms have been framed around CO2 levels, and do not consider specific pollutants, as there is no...

Based on the available evidence, engineering recommendations for healthy, comfortable school environments conducive to knowledge have been proposed: 1. Schools should not allow temperatures to drift above the recommended range of 20 to 22 C in the winter season and 22 to 24 C in the summer. While current guidelines allow temperatures in the range of 25 C to 32 C, evidence suggests that temperatures in this range may impact on cognitive performance and comfort of the students. 2. Overall evidence suggests limiting average indoor CO2 concentrations in all teaching and learning spaces to an average...

Built Offsite preface iii Nomenclature viii 2 Regulatory framework and empirical evidence on indoor levels in school settings 2 4 The effect of temperature on health, cognitive performance and comfort 9 5 The effect of ventilation rates and CO2 levels on health, cognitive performance and perceived IAQ 13 6 The effect of school exposure on health and perceived IAQ 16

Correlation between indoor CO2 levels and ventilation rates in naturally and mechanically ventilated classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moderate relationship between CO2 concentrations and TVOCs in 132 classrooms in published literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flow diagram of study selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Normalised performance as a function of classroom temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage...

standard deviation indoor minus outdoor CO2 levels American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers Colony Forming Unit per cubic meter of air Carbon Monoxide Carbon Dioxide The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood litres per second per person Nitrogen Monoxide Nitrogen Dioxide Natural Ventilation Mixed-Mode Ventilation Mechanical Ventilation Odds Ratio meta-analytic Odds Ratio Particulate Matter Airborne particles with a diameter less than or equal to 2.5 µm Airborne particles with a diameter less than or equal to 10 µm Predicted Mean Vote Predicted...

School buildings are complex spaces to design as they need to perform well in all aspects of environmental conditions, including, but not limited to, air quality and acoustic levels [1], while needing to accommodate periods with very high occupant densities. The typical classroom has on average four times as many occupants per square metre as the typical office building. According to Eurostat (2011) [2], the average primary class size in European countries and the US was 21 (s : 2) pupils corresponding to a density ranging from 2 to 3.1 m2 per person. The high occupancy densities in school classrooms...

Regulatory framework and empirical evidence on indoor levels in school settings This section presents current regulatory frameworks developed to ensure acceptable thermal conditions and adequate IAQ in educational settings and other non-industrial environments. Moreover, current evidence on thermal conditions and indoor pollution levels in classrooms is summarised. Thermal conditions There has been an extensive research on thermal comfort over several decades, which has led to two main approaches, the thermo-physiological and the adaptive comfort approach. Both approaches form the basis for existing...

Figure 1: Correlation between indoor CO2 levels and ventilation rates in naturally and mechanically ventilated classrooms synthesised in a meta-analytic study [3] Ventilation rates and CO2 levels Ventilation is the process of exchanging indoor polluted air with outdoor (presumably) fresh and clean air. Indoor CO2 levels produced by metabolic breathing of the occupants are a reliable indicator of ventilation rates, as increased outdoor airflow dilutes indoor concentrations (Figure 1). CO2 levels and corresponding ventilation rates are therefore a good indicator of pollutants with indoor sources...