Sustainable home environments : proactively addressing sickness-related damp and moldy environments to reduce the impact on the BC health care system
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Engineering, School of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Hostland, Craig Rodney
issued: 2015-10-24T01:37:33
issued: 2015
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: In developed countries nearly half of a person’s life is spend in their home environment. Worldwide, up to 30% of new and remodelled buildings may have indoor air quality issues with the quality of housing in general playing a decisive role in occupant health. Upwards of 50% of homes in North America contain damp or moldy environments with microbial debris being a key element in indoor air pollution. Asthma prevalence has been deemed a by-product of unhealthy home environments, exacerbated by exposure to high levels of mold and dampness. Asthma impacts 28 million people in North America and accounts for over $62 billion in health care costs and economic impact from lost productivity, lost work days, and early death. This thesis presents literature that demonstrates the link and extent of impact among damp and moldy indoor environments and respiratory disease using asthma as a case study. To quantify the effects, a reliable empirical tool that ranks residential indoor environment condition and predicts associated respiratory health-effect risk in homes has been developed and validated. To support the delivery of potentially significant health benefits and public health care system cost savings, this thesis considers a method, based on economics and risk analysis, to reduce respiratory health impact and validates the basis for a proactive sustainable health care prevention program based on residential mold and dampness remediation. The financial assessment conducted in this thesis utilizing social cost-benefit risk analysis suggests the direct economic burden on the public health care system (PHCS) from high-use (severe and persistent) mold and dampness-affected asthmatics is $5.4 billion annually in North America with an estimated $2.8 billion in savings from a prevention program available for reallocation purposes and the freeing of system capacity for the over-burdened health care system. A patient-centric component costing analysis was conducted to supplement and …
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/54764
note: SUSTAINABLE HOME ENVIRONMENTS: PROACTIVELY ADDRESSING SICKNESS-RELATED DAMP AND MOLDY ENVIRONMENTS TO REDUCE THE IMPACT ON THE BC HEALTH CARE SYSTEM by Craig Rodney Hostland B.A.Sc., the University of British Columbia, 1982 M.B.A., Queens University, 1996 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Civil Engineering) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) August 2015 © Craig Rodney Hostland, 2015 i Abstract In developed countries nearly half of a person’s life is spend in their home environment. Worldwide, up to 30% of new and remodelled buildings may have indoor air quality issues with the quality of housing in general playing a decisive role in occupant health. Upwards of 50% of homes in North America contain damp or moldy environments with microbial debris being a key element in indoor air pollution. Asthma prevalence has been deemed a by-product of unhealthy home environments, exacerbated by exposure to high levels of mold and dampness. Asthma impacts 28 million people in North America and accounts for over $62 billion in health care costs and economic impact from lost productivity, lost work days, and early death. This thesis presents literature that demonstrates the link and extent of impact among damp and moldy indoor environments and respiratory disease using asthma as a case study. To quantify the effects, a reliable empirical tool that ranks residential indoor environment condition and predicts associated respiratory health-effect risk in homes has been developed and validated. To support the delivery of potentially significant health benefits and public health care system cost savings, this thesis considers a method, based on economics and risk analysis, to reduce respiratory health impact and validates the basis for a proactive sustainable health care prevention program based on residential mold and dampness remediation. The financial assessment conducted …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2015-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0220722
language: eng
degree discipline: Civil Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/54764