(Dis)comfort and Health-induced Stress: The Need for Unravelling Their Effects

Research has shown that even though the indoor environmental conditions seem to comply with current standards and guidelines and those conditions seem 'comfortable' enough, staying indoors is not good for our health. Reasons for this discrepancy might be the fact that these guidelines are mainly based on single-dose response relationships (effect modelling using dose-related indicators) for the physical stressors (odour, light, sound, and temperature) determined for an average adult person; aimed at preventing short-term discomfort, not long-term health effects, ignoring situation-related aspects, ignoring different preferences and needs of occupants. In four steps, the question "What is needed to determine other indicators that can help to prevent long-term health effects?" is answered. In step 1, a more comprehensive research model than the single dose-response model is introduced. Step 2 is concerned with the validation of that model based on a series of field studies. Step 3 addresses the need for methods (and indicators) that enable us to study interactions occurring at human level (perceptual and physiological) induced by indoor environmental stressors resulting in both short-term and long-term (integrated) effects. Finally, in step 4, it is emphasized that to determine indicators that can be used to predict long-term health effects from 'short-term' perceptual assessments and/or physiological measurement requires understanding of how our body copes with stressors that trigger the (dis) comfort-induced mechanisms and the health-induced mechanisms.