By Susan Illman
If you were in Dr. Joseph Allen’s class on healthy buildings at Harvard this semester, you’d have begun your first day at the bust of Alice Hamilton on campus. Hamilton is one of his personal heroes and a pioneer of industrial toxicology, who found that workers in the early 1900s were getting sick from lead they breathed in, not from inadequate handwashing. Hamilton conducted science to better the lives of workers and helped pass laws requiring employer safety precautions.
Joe Allen, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, director of Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program and author of the best-selling book Healthy Buildings, is also a scientist-activist who has spent a career working to make buildings healthier for all. He has published his studies in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, but has also worked to translate his findings into strategies that help support healthier buildings.
During IWBI’s WELL Summit in New York City, Allen sat down with IWBI’s President and CEO Rachel Hodgdon to talk about all things healthy buildings, in an energetic exchange to round out the day. Below are highlights from the conversation.
When asked where he thinks the healthy building movement stands today, Dr. Allen sees strong systemic momentum backed by non-governmental institutions moving in the right direction. Promising signs include the first-ever indoor air quality (IAQ) event held at the United Nations during Climate Week, during which the Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air was launched, and new ASHRAE leadership focused on healthy buildings. Private companies are stepping up, too, he said.
Allen’s studies of last year’s Los Angeles wildfires are measuring what hasn’t been monitored before: how long toxicants remain airborne – including indoors. He found that high levels of nanoparticles of poisonous metals such as lead and hexavalent chromium (Chromium 6) lingered months after the fires and at higher levels indoors compared to outdoors. He explained that these dangerous particulates become absorbed by every organ and cell, passing the blood brain barrier, affecting the full human body.
While much of Allen’s research is published in academic journals, he has also led critical research through corporate funding. He noted that companies can be effective partners at not only supporting new research but also making sure it has wider reach.
“And there’s an important series of examples we can reflect on,” said Allen.
“Like your COGfx study,” offered Hodgdon.
Published in 2016, this groundbreaking study showed that cleaner indoor air quality with lower levels of CO2 and VOCs nearly doubled worker cognitive scores compared to workers in typical office spaces with lower ventilation.
“We released the study at Greenbuild,” recalled Allen. “Then it took off and we promoted it around the world…We humanized and personalized the message.”
Allen recently consulted on the IAQ management system at the new JPMorgan headquarters in New York City. “It’s beautiful for the things you cannot see,” he said. It includes higher ventilation, better filtration and continuous indoor air monitoring – all things the WELL Standard recommends.
JPMorgan initially adopted Allen’s recommended design changes over a decade ago when many experts said those changes couldn’t be done. Today the upgrades have brought several thousands of dollars of benefit per occupant for a fairly low dollar investment. What else do JPMorgan and other firms get from its healthier employees? Higher recruitment, higher retention and higher productivity. “[Their] executives say, ‘If I could move any of these [factors] by 1% at my company, I’d be a hero,’” adds Hodgdon.
Lately, Allen and his team are using AI to “move from sensing problems to simulating solutions.” They’ve replicated a 330 million-person U.S. population in a privacy-safe digital twin in order to identify who is most at risk of unhealthy indoor air based on where they live. Per Allen’s modeling, the most vulnerable population is young children living in old homes built before the 1970s with lead-based paint. Allen’s team is also simulating outdoor wildfire smoke and indoor air measurements to see what would have happened during the Los Angeles wildfires had the 15,000 destroyed structures been designed correctly.
“What [strategies] do you predict will become as standard as indoor plumbing a decade from now?,” asked Hodgdon.
“Real time indoor air quality monitoring sensors in every home and building. Get ahead of problems before they become problems that compromise health. These are low-cost, no-brainer solutions. You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said Allen.
One benefit of the buildings we inhabit is that individuals have more control over indoor air than outdoor air. At home, Allen advises upgrading ventilation and filtration systems, limiting use of “forever chemicals,” and prioritizing bedroom air as we spend one-third of our lives sleeping. “Ventilation filtration is a cornerstone of public health.”
With healthier indoor air, everyone everywhere will benefit from better buildings.
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