Personal lighting conditions of office workers: An exploratory field study

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18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Light enables us to see and perceive our environment but it also initiates effects beyond vision, such as alertness. Literature describes that at least six factors are relevant for initiating effects beyond vision. The exact relationship between these factors and alertness is not yet fully understood. In the current field study, personal lighting conditions of 62 Dutch office workers (aged 49.7 ± 11.4 years) were continuously measured and simultaneously self-reported activities and locations during the day were gathered via diaries. Each office worker participated 10 working days in spring 2017. Personal lighting conditions were interpreted based on four of the six factors (light quantity, spectrum, timing, and duration of light exposure). Large individual differences were found for the daily luminous exposures, illuminances, correlated colour temperatures, and irradiances measured with the blue sensor area of the dosimeter. The average illuminance (over all participants and all days) over the course of the day peaked three times. The analysis of the duration of light exposure demonstrated that the participants were on average only exposed to an illuminance above 1000 lx for 72 minutes per day. The interpretation of personal lighting conditions based on the four factors provides essential information since all of these factors may be relevant for initiating effects beyond vision. The findings in the current paper give first in-depth insight in the possibilities to interpret personal lighting conditions of office workers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)285-310
Number of pages26
JournalLighting Research and Technology
Volume53
Issue number4
Early online date9 Dec 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021

Funding

This research was performed within the framework of the strategic joint research program on Intelligent Lighting between TU/e and Koninklijke Philips N.V. and the Impuls II SPARK program. The municipality of Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands and its employees were recognized for participation in this study. In addition, the doctoral committee members reviewing the PhD dissertation of Juliëtte van Duijnhoven are acknowledged for their feedback on this paper. The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

FundersFunder number
Philips

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