Bad Office Air
Workers here are worse victims of sick-building syndrome than European counterparts, but building are in good shape, an NUS study has found
BAD air in office buildings here makes one in three office workers feel lethargic and experience dryness of throat, skin and eyes.
A new survey by National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers found that workers here have it worse than those 11 European countries when it comes to 10 out of the top dozen health problems linked to "sick-building syndrome."
The study, the first to compare the local situation here with conditions overseas, was carried out by the NUS school of Building and Real Estate.
It also found that although workers here appear to suffer more than those in Europe, office building here are still in good shape.
The researcher checked 98 locations in five buildings, which are three to 15 years old.
They checked the levels of chemical and biological contaminants such as carbon dioxide and bacteria, as well as fine dust particles in the indoor air.
Dr Tham Kwok Wai, a senior lecturer at the school, said the average level of contaminants in five buildings surveyed were all within acceptable levels, going by the Environment Ministry's guidelines.
The local buildings were compared to the 56 buildings surveyed in Europe, which held about 6,000 occupants.
There have been no reports of patients or hospital staff being affected adversely by poor air quality in hospitals, said the Health Ministry.
Replying to the The Straits Times, a ministry spokesman said that audits on infection control have been carried out regularly since 1992 and these had found the situation in hospitals satisfactory.
He said: "The practice of proper infection control is of primary importance in hospital, particularly in intensive care areas and operation theatres.
"Maintaining good air quality is part of infection control for preventing the transmission of air borne infection and disease"
Standards for infection control in hospitals are spelt out in law.
The ministry issues all other health-care establishments separate guidelines on good infection-control practice and specific guidelines for preventing transmission of infections.
Ventilation is one consideration.
The spokesman added: "The responsibility of ensuring a high quality of indoor air rest on the hospital management. The ministry ensures through audits that the necessary infection-control facilities are in place, and that good infection control is practised.
"Infection-control programmes and surveillance, and infection control practices at the hospitals have been found to be satisfactory."
Of the seven building parameters measured, direct comparisons could not be made in four areas, because the method of measuring were different.
In the remaining three, Singapore building generally had lower levels of carbon dioxide and fine dust particles, but marginally higher carbon monoxide levels than building in Europe.
But high levels of contamination were found here in a few isolated locations in the five building surveyed.
In some areas, for example there were three times as much bacteria in the air than the level regarded as safe.
Yeast, mould, formaldehyde and carbon dioxide also exceeded the limits in some spots.
The 426 people who worked in the five buildings surveyed were also polled to check on their "sick- building" symptoms.
One interesting finding of the local surveys was that workers were not as dissatisfied with the air quality as those in Europe although Singapore workers showed more symptoms.
Dr S.C. Sekhar, who is in the NUS team said that cultural differences could explain this.
It is possible that employees here less likely to complain to their bosses - even if they suffer "sick- building symptoms" -than workers in European work places.
Since 1991, the NUS team has completed three research projects on indoor air quality it has another two underway.
It is planning to focus on the impact of indoor air quality on productivity.
Help will come from the world's leading expert in indoor air quality, Professor Ole Fanger, director of the Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy at the Technical University of Denmark.
He arrives next week for a fortnight's stay as NUS distinguished visiting professor.
He will deliver a public lecture on Jan 17 at 6 pm at lecture Room 427 at the faculty of Architecture, Building and Real Estate.
He will speak on human Requirements for Air-conditioned Environments in the 21st Century - A Search for Excellence