IJE Advance Access originally published online on August 19, 2004
International Journal of Epidemiology 2004 33(5):1123-1126; doi:10.1093/ije/dyh264
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IJE vol.33 no.5 © International Epidemiological Association 2004; all rights reserved.
Commentary |
Commentary: Air conditioning as a risk for increased use of health services
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Background |
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Occupants of office buildings with air conditioning (AC) systems (e.g. central ventilation with cooling of air) consistently report, on average, more symptoms in their buildings than do occupants of buildings with natural ventilation. This has been the finding in individual studies from many studies over the last 20 years, and in three reviews.1–3 The symptoms in these studies have included mucous membrane irritation, breathing difficulties, irritated skin, and constitutional/neurological symptoms such as headache and fatigue. This set of non-specific symptoms, often referred to as building-related symptoms or sick building syndrome, has not been linked to specific known diseases. The association of AC with increased symptoms has received little recognition outside the world of indoor environmental research. This may be because the health outcomes studied have been subjectively assessed and limited to acute, non-specific symptoms, and because specific environmental exposures have still not been clearly implicated as the causal factors.
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Summary of study findings |
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