Implications of Green Buildings and Climate Change on Human Health in Israel
Abstract
In this article the medical and public health aspects of building design and materials are discussed. The literature linking building exposures, including use of building health effects is reviewed. Materials and design specific to the built environment in Israel are outlined. Building design in the Eastern Mediterranean is influenced by regional climate change and in turn can impact the progression of climatic change. The growing fields of green building and green neighborhood design and its implication on human health and climate change are reviewed, specifically as it pertains to the built environment in Israel.References
Alweil, A., (1983) Construction Methods in Israel: Engineering Survey. Tel Aviv: Israelli Conctruction Center, Ministry of Housing and Construction/ (Hebrew)
Becker, R. (2000) Energy Code in Building. National Building Research Institute report. Haifa: Technion, Israel. (Hebrew)
Biberman, R., Lusky, A., Schlesinger, T., Margaliot, M., Neeman, E. and Modan, B... (1993) Increased Risk for small cell lung cancer following residential exposure to low-dose radon: A pilot study. Archives of Environmental Health, 48(4):209-12
Brightman, H.S., Milton, D.K., Wypij, D., Burge, H.A., Spengler, J.D. (2008) Evaluating building-related symptoms using the US EPA BASE study results. Indoor Air, 18:335-45.
Carson, R.L., (1962). Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Donchin, M., Shemesh, A.A., Horowitz, P. and Daoud, N. (2006) Implementation of the Healthy Cities' principles and strategies: An evaluation of the Israel Healthy Cities network. Health Promotion International, 21(4): 266-273.
El-Zein, A, Tewtel-Salem, M. and Nehme G. (2004) A time-series analysis of mortality and air temperature in Greater Beirut. Science of the Total Environment 330(1-3):71–80.
Fisk, W.J., Mirer, A.G. and Mendell M.J. (2009) Quantitative relationship of sick building syndrome symptoms with ventilation rates. Indoor Air, 19:159–65.
Jackson, R.J. (2003) The Impact of the built environment on health: An emerging field. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9): 1382-1384.
Kats, G. (2003) The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings. A report to California's Sustainable Building Task Force. Sacramento, CA.
Kats, G. (2009) Greening Our Built World: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies. Washington, DC.: Island Press.
Kostopoulou, E. and Jones, P.D. (2005) Assessment of climate extremes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 89:69-85.
Leghrouz, A., Abu-Samreh, M.M., Awawdah, K.M., Abu-Taha, M.I., Saleh, A.M., Kitaneh, R.M. and Darwish, S.M. (2006) Indoor 222Rn concentration measurements in some buildings of
Hebron province during the winter season of the year 2000. Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 123(2):226-233.
McLennan, J.F. (2004) The Philosophy of Sustainable Design. Bainbridge Island, WA: Ecotone Publishing Company LLC,.
Mendell, M.J. (1993) Non-specific symptoms in office workers: A review and summary of the epidemiologic literature. Indoor Air, 4:227–36.
Nicoll, G. and Zimring, C. )2009) Effect of innovative building design on physical activity. Journal of Public Health Policy, 30: S111–S123.
Paffenbarger, R.S. Jr, Hyde, T.T., Wing, A.L. and Hsieh, C.C. (1997) Physical activity, all-cause mortality, and longevity of college alumni. New England Journal of Medicine, 314:605–613.
Paz, S. (2006) The West Nile Virus outbreak in Israel (2000) from a new perspective: The regional impact of climate change. International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 16(1):1-13.
Paz, S., Bisharat, N., Paz, E., Kidar, O., and Cohen, D. (2007) Climate change and the emergence of Vibrio Vulnificus Disease in Israel. Environmental Research, 103: 390-396.
Paz, S., Zoplaki, E., Gershunov, A. (2010) Scientific report of the workshop "Impacts of Mediterranean climate change on human health". European Science Foundation. January 2010.
Portnov, B.A. and Paz, S. (2008) Climate change and urbanization in arid regions, Annals of Arid Zone, 47(3/4): 1-15.
Reinikainen L.M. and Jaakkola J.J. (2001) Effects of temperature and humidification in the office environment. Archives of Environmental Health, 56:365-68.
Rios JL, Boechat, JL, Gioda, A, dos Santos, CY, de Aquino Neto, FR, and Lapa e Silva J.R. (2009) Symptoms prevalence among office workers of a sealed versus a non-sealed building: Associations to indoor air quality. Environment International, 35(8):1136-4.
Rudlin, D. (1999) Building the 21st Century Home: The Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood. Oxford: Architectural Press.
Shaviv, E. and Capeluto, I.G. (1992) Climate and Energy Conscious Design Guidelines for Residential Building in Temperate-Cool and Hot-Humid Mediterranean Climate. Jerusalem: Israel Ministry of Housing and S. Neaman Institute. (Hebrew)
Shaviv E., Yezioro, A. and Capeluto, I. G. (2003) Climate and Energy Aspects of Urban Design in The Hot-Humid Region of Israel. Jerusalem: Chief Scientist Bureau, Ministry of National Infrastructure and Technion Research and Development Foundation Ltd. (Hebrew)
Srinivasan, S., O'Fallon, L.R. and Dearry, A. (2003) Creating healthy communities, Healthy homes, healthy people: Initiating a research agenda on the built environment and public health. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9): 1446-1450.
Sunesson, A.L., Rosén, I., Stenberg, B., and Sjöström, M. (2006) Multivariate evaluation of VOCs in buildings where people with non-specific building-related symptoms perceive health problems and in buildings where they do not. Indoor Air, 16(5):383-91.
TenBrinke, J., Selvin, S. and Hodgson, A.T. (1998) Development of new volatile organic compound (VOC) exposure metrics and their relationship to Sick Building Syndrome symptoms. Indoor Air, 8:140–152.
Turner, C. (2008) Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings. Report by New Building Institute. U.S Green Building Council Publication.
US EPA (1989) Impact of Indoor Air Pollution. In: Office on Air and Radiation. (ed.) Report to Congress on Indoor Air Quality, Vol. II: Assessment and Control of Indoor Air Pollution ’96, EPA 400-1-89-001C I, Washington, D.C., pp.4–14.
WHO (2004) Regional estimates of YLL, YLD, DALYs, and deaths attributable to 24 risk factors for 2004: estimates of exposure prevalence for selected risk factors. WHO: Rome
WHO (2008) WHO international radon project: Rational and current results. WHO: Rome
Won, D.Y., Magee, R.J., Lusztyk, E., Nong, G., Zhu, J.P., Zhang, J.S., Reardon, J.T. and Shaw, C.Y. (2003) A comprehensive VOC emission database for commonly-used building materials. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of Healthy Buildings. Singapore: Stallion Press, National University of Singapore, 1-6.
Zawahri, M.Z. (2004) Stroke and the weather. Neurosciences, 9(1):60–61.
Zhang, X. Y., Gong S. L., Zhao, T. L. Arimoto, R. Wang, Y. Q. and Zhou, Z. J. (2003) Sources of Asian dust and role of climate change versus desertification in Asian dust emission. Geophysics Research Letters, 30(24): 2272.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.