Talk:Sick building syndrome

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2021 and 14 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Stevenyang777.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

place of work?

Does the building have to be a 'place of work'? Well, if you define 'work' broadly enough, I suppose so. But one can suffer from SBS whilst lying in one's own bed in ones own bedroom in ones own home. This would not normally be considered a place of work, until someone, e.g. a builder, came along to do some work in it.

It depends on the source. The EPA definition refers to "occupants of a building," the UK's National Health Service refers to people in particular buildings and adds "most commonly...employed in large office buildings," and this OSU fact sheet refers to "symptoms of people in specific buildings." The Merck Manual defines it as affecting only workers in a building, not residents. Mecdicinenet.com claims that it's synonymous with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), which is supported by the wikipedia article on that topic, but I think that's dubious, and wikipedia's MCS article doesn't provide a source supporting that. -Agyle 08:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Tobacco Industry Creation?

I heard that Sick building syndrome was invented but the Tobacco Industry to cover up the dangers of passive smoking. Just an observation. Australian Reference --Z o l t a r 14:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

According to the referenced article that's not the case. It uses word "embraced". So the term or syndrome existed before and industry just said that there's more to indoor air pollution than smoke. -edit : this response was on the assumption that "but" above is actually "by" since otherwise the sentence doesn't make any sense.

That was my understanding too. Although I guess some buildings really do have (non-smoking) features that are less than healthy. Anyway, it looks like you're more au fait with sources, so it'd be cool if you could edit to this effect. Cheers, --Plumbago 15:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps at its time of invention that was the case, but its been a long time since smoking was allowed in many of the public buildings in the United States. Most of the Sick Building Syndrome cases come from Microbial Contaminaion of the HVAC, poor Air Flow and people allergic to VOC from things like plastics and carpets. Stoppay 16:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Image

Example of good (right) and bad (left) ventilation

Could someone comment on the image shown in this article ? Why is it supposed to have something to do with the sick building syndrome? --Abdull 09:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, could someone explain why one is good and the other is bad? Just that photo is not explicative. --CrazyTerabyte 01:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

dito. Because nobody can explain the image, I'll put it here. Micha 14:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, isn't one drawing air in, the other out? Both are needed for ventilation of any space. You can't ventilate if old air isn't drawn out, and you can't ventilate if new air isn't drawn in. This image is very misleading. DILNN1 (talk) 19:30, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The picture shows an unnecessarily dangerous method of tracing airflow, and is irrelevant to this article. Reify-tech (talk) 14:18, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking of creating on article on "Accidental Stupid Arson". This image will be perfect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.248.233.46 (talk) 20:38, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Green-Project.org

The Google Map of green/sick buildings doesn't appear to say anywhere on it that that is its purpose. In fact, it seems to be about whether a site is contributing to global warming. 84.92.175.243 22:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the linked site is probably not intended to be used in the way the article was suggesting. I think the link was likely added in good faith, but the purpose of the site might have been misunderstood. To keep any well-intentioned Wikipedians from contributing potentially unwanted data points to green-project.org, I've removed the link pending a response from the proprietors. If they have no problem with their site being used as described, I'll put it back in. In the meantime, the deleted text is included below. Cecilkorik 22:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

A public built Green / Sick Building Google Map is now live for individuals to mark potentially harmful buildings.

The Green / Sick Building Google Map seems inaccessible. MaynardClark (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Resources for the article

This is a place to list reliable resources for the page which have not been incorporated yet. Feel free to cut or strike as they are used, and list others, but be brief.

• From NEJM 1993 comes a book review, original article, and an editorial which says the paper suggests that it is due to inadequate ventilation.

II | (t - c) 21:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Mold

Potentially deadly mold? Really? I'll believe that when I see a source, and the current citation leads to a 404 error. Removing until then. 74.250.134.125 (talk) 02:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Critical Questions

I deleted the critical question portion. I did not find any value in it and seemed to discredit the rest of the article without sufficient citations.. Furthermore it seemed to go against the following wikipedia policy as it came across as a controversy subsection.

"Editors should avoid having a separate section in an article devoted to criticism, controversies,
or the like because these sections call undue attention to negative viewpoints. 
Instead, articles should present positive and negative viewpoints from reliable sources together, 
fairly, proportionately, and without bias. "

Until citations can be applied and the portion re-written I don't see any point in maintaining it. Xphill64x (talk) 03:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, if it is the target, the article can be deleted at all becase it is all nonsence similar to other green-based modern religions. It is evident. Some since-like published works does not change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.113.93.116 (talk) 10:00, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Untitled

This article does not take into consideration new research. There are more factors affecting health than those taken into account here. Sound is not taken into account, but a major issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.179.202.53 (talk) 19:13, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Popular usage and scope of article

To improve this article much further, we really need to get a handle on what people are talking (and searching) about most often when they refer to "sick building syndrome", and how we're going to reconcile or split the different definitions of the term. To start with, here's the most prominent ways I've found people using the phrase "sick building syndrome":

• A set of non-specific symptoms/complaints associated with air conditioning systems in general (eg here)
• Any syndrome or set of symptoms associated with known or unknown aerosol irritant exposure including tobacco smoke, combustion exhaust, monoxide, radon, formaldehyde, asbestos, dust, lead paint, etc (eg Rogers' "Tight Building Syndrome", Joshi 2008)
• As above but with bioaerosol irritants like dust mites, pollen, viruses, bacteria, fungi, insect matter (eg here)
• A generic term encompassing Legionnaire's, Pontiac fever, allergic alveolitis, "humidifier fever", pneumonia (!), occupational asthma, ie basically any illness associated with man-made structures (eg see Joshi 2008)
• Symptoms that the patient believes are building-related, but are in fact due to other causes such as preexisting illnesses, asthma, allergies, stress, job dissatisfaction, psychological problems, somatization, etc etc (eg Joshi 2008)
• Hypothetical harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation or magnetic fields (eg Joshi 2008 again)
• In the HVAC industry to refer to the undesirable situation/outcome of people complaining about a building's climate/air quality (eg Joshi 2008, US EPA, architectural consultants, other articles here)
• In the management industry the same way, with emphasis on the loss of productivity and absenteeism (eg see above, OSHA, people who sell air quality tests, business blogs)
• By pop psychologists and journalists as a... mystery thing in the same category as CFS, "MCS", "Gulf War Syndrome", "post-vaccination phenomena", etc (eg medicinenet, patient.info, this article about Finland)

Yeesh. So basically there are 3 major perspectives people (and sources) approach SBS from:

1. We can go along with the journalistic-narrative, public-health style approach and treat "SBS" as one overarching "mystery syndrome" with many possible symptoms, mechanisms, causes, etc. Serious studies have chosen to go with this approach like this one from Taiwan and it can be justified by the statistics-based view that most syndromes are ultimately a blend of all kinds of different risk factors and unknown variables.
2. Or we could approach skeptically with an individual scientific medicine article style and slice off chunks as needed, directing people to the articles on asthma, pollution, air quality, HVAC systems, occupational air hazards, health effects of <insert poison>, etc. Clean and rational, but basically requires pretending that this isn't a widespread phenomenon of public interest.
3. Could also go at it from a business/industry perspective. Attractive since it's simple and straightforward: no 20 paragraphs of medicosociopsychological speculation etc. On the other hand it doesn't come close to telling the whole story.

Ultimately we'll need to cover all 3 perspectives to serve all readers. Current article incoherently hints at that by kinda mashing them together at random. Good first step might be to pull out and consolidate the clinical material (ie all the info written by/for medical providers and patients) into its own section/article, then separate the HVAC/OSHA/arch/eco info into something like "causes and solutions", and leave the main article to deal with SBS in general as a public health phenomenon. Thoughts? -- bornLoser (talk) 18:35, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

IAQ is to some extent 'a function of' outdoor air quality

Could text be developed to specifically address this issue of the indoor conditions' relationship with the outdoor conditions? A task COULD be to map indoor building filtration's relationship with outdoor conditions across any region's landscape. MaynardClark (talk) 02:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Types of building-related illness(es)

Ask: "How are 'Nosocomial infections' and 'sick building syndrome' related conceptually?"

The CDC says that "Sick building syndrome is distinguished from more medically serious building-related illness by its subjective nature, reversibility, and high prevalence within implicated buildings and across the nonindustrial building stock in North America and Europe."

Perhaps something on a typology of occupational illnesses, that are context-related illnesses, injuries, or long-term harms. MaynardClark (talk) 02:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

References

Origin of the term

Douglas Coupland popularized the phrase "sick building syndrome" in his novel Generation X and the article neglects to mention this. Shouldn't it be included? Candymoan (talk) 11:13, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Portable Air Quality monitor 空気質測定器.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:21, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Major rewrites and fact checking needed

This article is quite credulous of "Sick building syndrome", a condition which may not exist. I removed some irrelevant material trying to link SARS to SBS. I'm unclear if the undated "World Health Organization" reference is authentic.

According to a 1991 EPA article, SBS is "used to describe situations in which building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified." But the lead and article do not emphasize the important part of the definition: that the cause is unknown. So once the cause of an illness is known, it's no longer SBS. And just because you don't know the cause, it could be confusing correlation for causation to blame the building. ScienceFlyer (talk) 23:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I understand the concerns, but removing entire sourced sections and completely rewriting the first paragraph in a way that is contrary to the rest of the article (which is what a lead should summarize) is not how to go about that. "Unsubstantiated diagnosis" is far too opinionated. You're also making the claim that SBS is just a placeholder diagnosis that means "we haven't found the real cause yet", but that's not how sources portray it. The tags and other changes are good though. Prinsgezinde (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. This article needs a lot of work. The best way to improve it is to move forward, not backward. For example, according to Petiigrew and colleagues: "Reports of various syndromes associated with time spent within buildings or near building supplies began to appear in the medical literature in the 1970s but has been largely relegated to junk science." ScienceFlyer (talk) 07:49, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

You are being protective of your edits, but you can't swoop in and change the main topic and scope of an article without any consensus, no matter how 'wrong' it may be. Instead of changing the lead and removing sections, add to the article. Show those other supported views. THEN the lead can reflect those. Also look at earlier versions of the lead. Anything but "unsubstantiated diagnosis", that appears to be a fringe view. Prinsgezinde (talk) 11:31, 9 February 2023 (UTC)