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Item Evaluating indoor climate interventions: Balancing sustainability and health outcomes(2024-07-07) Mishra, Asit Kumar; Wargocki, Pawel; O'Reilly, Éilis J.; Horizon 2020 Framework Programme; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie ActionsSUMMARY: Over the past 20 years, we have moved from low energy buildings to sustainable buildings. With this shift, life cycle energy and emissions analysis (LCA) has taken precedence. To design buildings that are sustainable, an analysis of the resources that go into constructing and operating building needs to be complemented with an analysis of how buildings impact our life. In this work, we propose elements of building design can be optimised for occupant health and the consequent environmental impact of these benefits can be incorporated into the LCA. INTRODUCTION: A significant portion of an energy-efficient building's embodied energy and emissions can be ascribed to its indoor conditioning system and HVAC (Shirazi and Ashuri, 2020). Sustainability modifications for buildings can also affect occupant health. To achieve global sustainability goals, a building’s energy use, emissions, as well as the impact on occupant health need to be evaluated holistically. There is a growing awareness of co-benefits of sustainable building designs that consider impact on occupant health. Yet, there is little research that includes the positive health impacts of indoor climate interventions in building performance evaluation or LCA. For example, appropriate air filtration can reduce asthma exacerbations during everyday use or cardio-respiratory hospitalizations during a wildfire. We propose that such evaluations should be part of built environment LCA to ensure optimal assessment of design alternatives. METHODS: It is well accepted that indoor climate conditioning contributes a notable fraction of a building’s operational energy use and embodied energy. Indoor climate can also directly affect occupant performance, health, and wellbeing. These impacts have been translated into health (Asikainen et al., 2016) and economic metrics (Walker et al., 2018). We propose that LCA of indoor climate conditioning interventions consider the reduced burden of disease to provide a more comprehensive comparison of designs (Fig. 1). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Taking the example of mechanical air filtration, previous studies have modelled the benefits of air filtration on hospitalizations (Fisk and Chan, 2017; MacIntosh et al., 2010), and doctor visits (Lanphear et al., 2011). These data can be combined with the LCA data from healthcare. Here, the recently developed open access, living database on healthcare LCA becomes a vital asset (Drew et al., 2022). For example, the LCA global warming potential of a portable air cleaner can be 408-670 kg CO2 equivalent (Tichá et al., 2016) while the avoidance of each asthma exacerbation, requiring a GP visit, can save ~68 kg CO2 equivalent emissions (Drew et al., 2022). Intervention effectiveness can be improved by focusing on vulnerable and susceptible populations (Fisk and Chan, 2017). A significant amount of further work is needed to ensure such analyses can be widely adopted. LCA indicators, for both the built environment component and health events, will be needed for the same or similar regions, instead of global values. Studies regarding indoor climate interventions will also need to focus on health benefits as one of the accessed outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: As the energy and climate-change crisis evolved, our grasp of sustainability also evolved. Sustainable development goals have a planetary nature, requiring inter-sectoral cooperation. The built environment sector has a consequential impact on global energy use and emissions. We submit that this impact can be mitigated not only by constructing energy efficient buildings but also healthy buildings that influence the health sector’s energy and emission burdens.Item A systematic review of user-centred design practices in illicit substance use interventions for higher education students(AIS Electronic Library (AISeL), 2018-06) Organ, Damien; Dick, Samantha; Hurley, Caroline; Heavin, Ciara; Linehan, Conor; Dockray, Samantha; Davoren, Martin P.; Byrne, MichaelThere is increasing interest within the mobile health (mHealth) field for technologies that encourage users to change or avoid certain health related behaviours. Recently the area of illicit substance use has attracted the attention of mHealth researchers, particularly as illicit substance use among students in higher education appears to be increasing. Little analysis has been conducted on the design strategies used to develop these interventions and the user experience they deliver. With concern growing about the capacity of mHealth interventions to engage users in real world settings, we undertook a systematic review of the implementation and reporting of user-centred design (UCD) practices in the development of illicit substance use behavioural interventions in the higher education context (n=7). Our review revealed limited consideration of end user experience and minimal engagement with UCD practices. We argue that these studies do not give sufficient consideration to factors that would have a significant influence their effectiveness and sustainability in normal use conditions. We further propose a framework of guidelines for the design and reporting of mHealth interventions (SCENE) that will underpin more robust methodologies for developing, evaluating, and reporting intervention strategies in this context.