by Lorelei Cohen

Created on: April 20, 2009   Last Updated: January 10, 2011

Sick building syndrome was brought to the forefront of public awareness in 1984 when The World Health Organization report acknowledged it as a very real illness with a very distinct reason for its occurrence. The general complaints of thousands of people affected by this illness were growing louder and could no longer be ignored. A new illness was about to have a name and a reason attached to it. Sick building syndrome was being uncovered.

The health organization was now acknowledging that the air people were being exposed to within their homes and workplaces was poisoning them. Up to thirty percent of all newly renovated, or newly built homes, and offices had the ability to cause a strange new form of illness to the people who spent time within them.

So what exactly is sick building syndrome, where did it originate from, and why was it suddenly making its appearance so glaringly obvious within what previously had been thought to be healthy offices, schools, and homes?

It appears that the problem of creating unhealthy buildings actually started with the 1973 oil embargo and the resulting oil crisis. With oil shortages being threatened worldwide the price of oil raised dramatically. In efforts to conserve oil stocks, new building standards were put in place to insure that buildings would be as energy efficient, as they could possibly be.

Newly constructed and renovated homes, offices, and schools, would follow standards set out to insure that they would be much more airtight. It was believed that this move would have buildings requiring less heating, and cooling costs, so they would therefore be as energy efficient as they could possibly be. But these new standards rather than being of benefit during this crisis period, instead served to trap bacteria and other pollutants within these buildings. These trapped contaminants then had the opportunity to multiply and rise to dangerous levels. It was these contaminants which were causing the people who came in contact with them to become ill.

In the early 1900's and throughout the mid 1900's building standards required 15 cubic feet of fresh air per minute per person for appropriate ventilation within a building. This amount was reduced to a mere 5 cubic feet of air per minute per person when the new energy conservation measures were implemented in the 1970's. The people who lived and worked within these newly renovated or newly built buildings began complaining of a variety of symptoms. For most of those individuals

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>