Cargando…

A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments

Buildings account for approximately 40% of the energy consumption across the European Union, so there is a requirement to strive for better energy performance to reduce the global impact of urbanised societies. However, energy performant buildings can negatively impact building occupants (e.g., comf...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Coulby, Graham, Clear, Adrian K., Jones, Oliver, McDonald, Suzanne, Godfrey, Alan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9506647/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36149866
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274015
_version_ 1784796774863470592
author Coulby, Graham
Clear, Adrian K.
Jones, Oliver
McDonald, Suzanne
Godfrey, Alan
author_facet Coulby, Graham
Clear, Adrian K.
Jones, Oliver
McDonald, Suzanne
Godfrey, Alan
author_sort Coulby, Graham
collection PubMed
description Buildings account for approximately 40% of the energy consumption across the European Union, so there is a requirement to strive for better energy performance to reduce the global impact of urbanised societies. However, energy performant buildings can negatively impact building occupants (e.g., comfort, health and/or wellbeing) due to a trade-off between airtightness and air circulation. Thus, there is a need to monitor Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) to inform how it impacts occupants and hence redefine value within building performance metrics. An individualised study design would enable researchers to gain new insights into the effects of environmental changes on individuals for more targeted e.g., health interventions or nuanced and improved building design(s). This paper presents a protocol to conduct longitudinal monitoring of an individual and their immediate environment. Additionally, a novel approach to environmental perception gathering is proposed that will monitor environmental factors at an individual level to investigate subjective survey data pertaining to the participant’s perceptions of IEQ (e.g., perceived air quality, thermal conditions, light, and noise). This protocol has the potential to expose time-differential phenomena between environmental changes and an individual’s behavioural and physiological responses. This could be used to support building performance monitoring by providing an interventional assessment of building performance renovations. In the future it could also provide building scientists with a scalable approach for environmental monitoring that focuses specifically on individual health and wellbeing.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9506647
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-95066472022-09-24 A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments Coulby, Graham Clear, Adrian K. Jones, Oliver McDonald, Suzanne Godfrey, Alan PLoS One Study Protocol Buildings account for approximately 40% of the energy consumption across the European Union, so there is a requirement to strive for better energy performance to reduce the global impact of urbanised societies. However, energy performant buildings can negatively impact building occupants (e.g., comfort, health and/or wellbeing) due to a trade-off between airtightness and air circulation. Thus, there is a need to monitor Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) to inform how it impacts occupants and hence redefine value within building performance metrics. An individualised study design would enable researchers to gain new insights into the effects of environmental changes on individuals for more targeted e.g., health interventions or nuanced and improved building design(s). This paper presents a protocol to conduct longitudinal monitoring of an individual and their immediate environment. Additionally, a novel approach to environmental perception gathering is proposed that will monitor environmental factors at an individual level to investigate subjective survey data pertaining to the participant’s perceptions of IEQ (e.g., perceived air quality, thermal conditions, light, and noise). This protocol has the potential to expose time-differential phenomena between environmental changes and an individual’s behavioural and physiological responses. This could be used to support building performance monitoring by providing an interventional assessment of building performance renovations. In the future it could also provide building scientists with a scalable approach for environmental monitoring that focuses specifically on individual health and wellbeing. Public Library of Science 2022-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9506647/ /pubmed/36149866 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274015 Text en © 2022 Coulby et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Study Protocol
Coulby, Graham
Clear, Adrian K.
Jones, Oliver
McDonald, Suzanne
Godfrey, Alan
A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
title A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
title_full A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
title_fullStr A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
title_full_unstemmed A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
title_short A protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
title_sort protocol for longitudinal monitoring of individual building occupants and their environments
topic Study Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9506647/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36149866
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274015
work_keys_str_mv AT coulbygraham aprotocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT clearadriank aprotocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT jonesoliver aprotocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT mcdonaldsuzanne aprotocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT godfreyalan aprotocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT coulbygraham protocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT clearadriank protocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT jonesoliver protocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT mcdonaldsuzanne protocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments
AT godfreyalan protocolforlongitudinalmonitoringofindividualbuildingoccupantsandtheirenvironments