November 12, 2012—Impossible deadlines, heavy workloads, and annoying bosses are often blamed for the migraines and headaches many office workers suffer from. However, they may not be the real or only culprit. According to a report from Ball State University (BSU) researchers, an uncomfortable indoor environment, more commonly known as sick building syndrome, can cause headache and migraine symptoms.
The BSU report, Headache Symptoms and Indoor Environmental Parameters: Results from the EPA BASE study, found employees working indoors may become sick due to abnormal levels of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, light, humidity, temperature and sound.
The study found that when exposed to an uncomfortable indoor environment, 38 percent of participants reported having a headache one to three days a month while nearly 8 percent had daily headaches, said Jagdish Khubchandani, a community health education professor in Ball State’s Department of Physiology and Health Science.
Produced only once by the Environmental Protection Agency, this was a multicenter cross-sectional study of 4,326 office workers employed in 100 randomly selected large office buildings across the country.
As a result of the research, the authors found:
- Females were more likely to report a headache in the last four weeks when compared to males (75 percent vs. 53 percent).
- About 21 percent of employees admitted that a physician had diagnosed them with migraines. Females (27 percent) were significantly more likely than males (11 percent) to report a migraine diagnosis.
- The highest levels of migraine diagnosis were for employees exposed to out-of-comfort-range carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in their office buildings.
- Exposure to out-of-comfort range indoor environmental parameters was higher in groups that reported higher headache frequencies.
Because headaches related to office environment lead to loss of workdays and decreased productivity, the authors recommend that building managers implement effective intervention strategies to reduce the prevalence of headaches and other symptoms of sick building syndrome.
“Collection of periodic data on indoor environmental parameters should become a universal practice, and based on the data, a health risk management plan for the occupants should be designed,” said study co-author Suchismita Bhattacharjee, a professor of construction management in the Department of Technology at Ball State. “Reviewing operation and maintenance of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems should be made an integral part of the strategies to reduce harmful worksite exposures.”
