The Rochester, Minn.-based Well Living Lab has announced an extensive three-year scientific research plan to identify how indoor environments affect five significant facets of people’s lives: health, performance, stress and resiliency, sleep, and comfort. Studies will examine these factors for homes, workplaces and independent-living communities. A critical component of the research is the interplay of elements, such as sound, lighting, temperature and air quality, all of which can be altered in various combinations to uncover positive, neutral and negative effects on people.
“Our responsibility is to advance the science by conducting human-centered research that can be used in practical ways,” says Brent Bauer, M.D., medical director of the Well Living Lab and director of medicine for the Rochester-based Mayo Clinic’s Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program. “It’s our belief that favorable outcomes can be realized, which will have long-term benefits for people’s lives.”
A variety of experiments will be reviewed, approved and monitored by the Institutional Review Board of Mayo Clinic. The plan identifies research aims and questions to be explored, such as:
- How office workers respond to artificial lighting that simulates natural light, not just at work, but also how it may change their ability to get sufficient sleep at home.
- How changes in environmental conditions affect sleep and stress.
- What types of interventions can increase cognitive performance and improve job satisfaction.
This research agenda will further build on the results of the Well Living Lab’s latest study findings, now published as an open-access article in Building and Environment. The study reported that temperature, noise and lighting in open-office environments affect employees’ ability to get work done. This was a proof-of-concept study that demonstrated the strength of living-lab methodology in measuring realistic occupant responses to select environmental changes in an open office.
The study consisted of eight working-age participants who spent 18 weeks in a simulated work environment in which acoustics, lighting and temperature were manipulated in numerous combinations, and the findings were based on occupant responses to surveys and in-depth interviews.
“We want to understand the effect of environmental conditions and combinations of conditions to improve health and wellbeing, including performance, comfort, stress and resilience, and sleep,” Dr. Bauer continues. “This study is just the beginning. We will continue to explore the relationship of environmental factors in the workplace and at home.”
The direction for this scientific exploration was solidified by Mayo Clinic and New York-based Delos, as well as the lab’s scientific advisory board with members from academia and governmental institutions.