Approaches to health assessment related to housing

This research had the purpose of providing more information about possible approaches and indicators to measure indoor health in relation to housing. In researches related with health and some Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) databases, the model used for health assessment is the Impact Pathway Analysis adopted from Risk Assessment. It has the objective of expressing possible effects to human health in damage indicators, such as DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years). Calculating damage in the indoor environment implies having knowledge about the rate of emission of the substances, human exposure to the substances and the effect of the pollutants on humans. The sources and rates of toxic substances, the type of exposure, and the safeguard subjects (i.e. population of concern) must be defined. In life cycle assessment, all health effects during the whole life cycle of the house are summed up, which is very inconvenient when a risk analysis is needed. It appears that the approach to be followed should be mainly related with the scope of the assessment, for which three possible approaches were identified; a) Buildings physical characteristics approach, b) Building use approach, that includes the effects of the building and of occupants activities c) Life Cycle of Building Effects, which considers the effects of building and users activities during the whole life cycle of the building affecting therefore a broader population.