Sick Building Syndrome: In Search of Healthy Building
If we talk about sick building syndrome (SBS) is almost inevitable to recall the case of Gas Natural in Barcelona a few years ago. Specifically in 2006, 273 of its employees were semicircular lipoatrophy. An unusual symptom is a loss of a semicircular area of subcutaneous fat tissue located mainly in the front of the thighs. The causes, though not completely clarified, they had to do with a sick building, causing health problems for many of its occupants.
Immediately, one would think that talking about a sick building we are talking about an old and faulty construction. Not really. WHO estimated at third modern office buildings in the world where more than 20% of the occupants suffer symptoms of eye, nose or sore throat, nausea, headache, etc.
A modern and healthy …
If we go back in time in search of news, we find that this syndrome is very modern and comes in buildings designed to be energy efficient. We have to go back to 1976 to meet one of the first cases. In a hotel in Philadelphia during a convention of the American Legion, the presence of a highly infectious bacteria, hitherto unknown, air conditioning, killing dozens of people. The bacterium was named after Legionella and is now completely controlled.
Fortunately, it was an exceptional case and the consequences of working in a sick building are usually mild, in the form of irritation, headaches, coughing, drowsiness, etc., And negatively affects productivity and absenteeism.
However, although the risk factors that make a building “sick” can be many and varied, the majority of cases are due to air pollution inside the building. That is, modern buildings with air conditioning and insulated from the outside to avoid energy losses.
And besides, there are too sick buildings. In a study of 500 buildings in the U.S. and Europe found that 60% of air filtration systems were not set properly or were inadequate, that 33% of outdoor air intakes were closed in order to optimize conservation energy, that 22% of the air ducts were too dirty, and that 36% of air conditioning systems are contaminated with other aspects such as rotting tree leaves or dead insects.