Healthy Buildings

Leaders: Jordan Clark, Andy May

 

Motivation

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for actions to reduce disease transmission within the indoor environment by removing airborne particles containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the air. From a buildings perspective, this included increasing air exchange rates, installing filters with higher filtration efficiencies, and other engineering controls that improve indoor air quality. These strategies, along with administrative controls and the use of personal protective equipment, allowed essential services to remain open during the pandemic and enabled some safe alternatives to remote working and schooling. 

While clean air may be the most obvious fundamental quality of healthy buildings, other factors such as thermal comfort, quality lighting, and reduced noise contribute to a building’s overall health. The collection of empirical data can enable the quantification of building health, but human perception of these factors also plays an important role. Healthy buildings are a critical part of society because we spend roughly 90% of our time indoors. Consequently, healthy buildings can promote occupant health and well-being. 

The Ohio State University is well-positioned to emerge as a leader within the realm of healthy buildings. For example, among the authors of this document, we are working on the application of low-cost particle sensors for indoor air quality measurements and the characterization of microbial growth due to indoor moisture. Moreover, we are aware of other research across the university related to the indoor environment. While many efforts largely have an engineering or public health focus, we recognize the importance of psychosocial factors that may affect human behavior or worker productivity. Therefore, we envision the potential for collaborations across many intersections within the campus community.  

Objective

The desired outcome of this working group is the unification of researchers from the OSU community who are working on topics related to healthy buildings. While we have a central unifying theme, we recognize that such a community could result in tangential research directions (e.g., building energy efficiency, outdoor air quality).  

Goals 

We envision several goals for this working group. The short-term goals will establish the foundation for this exploratory working group, while the sustaining goals target long-term success. 

Short-Term Goals
1.  Provide a formalized mechanism for networking.  
2.  Identify synergistic efforts through ideation sessions.
3.  Provide recommendations for new faculty hires.  
a.  The JobsOhio investment will lead to a focus on health sciences, engineering, and computer sciences.  

b. The University’s RAISE initiative includes, among others, research at the intersection of race and health equity; race, resources, and the environment; and race, economic opportunity, and leadership.  

Sustaining Goals
1.  Build upon ideation sessions to target specific funding opportunities. 
2.  Integrate new faculty hires into the working group. 

 

For more information or to get involved, contact Andy May: May.561@osu.edu

 

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