Sick building syndrome

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is a condition in which people develop symptoms of illness or become infected with chronic disease from the building in which they work or reside. In scientific literature, SBS is also known as building-related illness (BRI), building-related symptoms (BRS), or idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI). The main identifying observation is an increased incidence of complaints of such symptoms as headache, eye, nose, and throat irritation, fatigue, dizziness, and nausea. The 1989 Oxford English Dictionary defines SBS in that way. The World Health Organization created a 484-page tome on indoor air quality in 1984, when SBS was attributed only to non-organic causes, and suggested that the book might form a basis for legislation or litigation. The outbreaks may or may not be a direct result of inadequate or inappropriate cleaning. SBS has also been used to describe staff concerns in post-war buildings with faulty building aerodynamics, construction materials, construction process, and maintenance. Some symptoms tend to increase in severity with the time people spend in the building, often improving or even disappearing when people are away from the building. The term SBS is also used interchangeably with "building-related symptoms", which orients the name of the condition around patients' symptoms rather than a "sick" building. Attempts have been made to connect sick building syndrome to various causes, such as contaminants produced by outgassing of some building materials, volatile organic compounds (VOC), improper exhaust ventilation of ozone (produced by the operation of some office machines), light industrial chemicals used within, and insufficient fresh-air intake or air filtration (see "Minimum efficiency reporting value"). Sick building syndrome has also been attributed to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, an attribution about which there are inconsistent findings.