Reduction of Health Impact of the Occupant from Indoor Air Pollution: A Case Study of KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital

Running head: HEALTH IMPACT OF INDOOR AIR POLLUTION 1
Reduction of Health Impact of the Occupant from Indoor Air Pollution: A Case Study of KPJ
Johor Specialist Hospital
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HEALTH IMPACT OF INDOOR AIR POLLUTION 2
Reduction of Health Impact of the Occupant from Indoor Air Pollution: A Case Study of KPJ
Johor Specialist Hospital
Introduction
Indoor environmental quality refers to various elements in a building that influence the human
wellbeing in a particular building. Indoor environmental quality (IEQ ) has been identified as one
of the key components of the Green Building Index (GIB) which should be adequately provided
in a building for it to be recognized as a green building in Malaysia (GBI 2014). The provision of
a conducive human health environment has been identified as the main benefit of the
incorporation of the indoor environmental quality in a building. According to Che (2015), the
indoor environmental quality in buildings provides a positive impact on the market of the
residential property.
The elements of indoor environmental quality (IEQ)
There are four critical components of indoor environmental quality namely. The indoor air
quality, lighting, thermal comfort and acoustics.
The indoor air quality (IAQ) is simply the quality of air within a building and can be determined
based on the pollutant concentrations in a particular building (EAP, 2018). The quality of air in a
building greatly affects the performance, comfort and the health of the people occupying a
particular building and it therefore important that good indoor air quality is put into
considerations. Some of the factors for good indoor air quality include the good distribution of
ventilation air and the controlled building airborne contaminants (Nazaroff, 2013).
Thermal comfort is the condition of wellbeing of a person in a building under the influence of
both human and environmental factors. The environmental factors governing the thermal comfort

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include air temperatures and the relative humidity in the building. The human metabolic heat and
clothing are the main human factors influencing the thermal comfort of building occupants.
According to Enescu (2017) and Taleghani et al. (2014) a thermal comfort level endorsed by at
least eighty percent of the occupants is acceptable.
The lighting of a building takes into consideration a number of factors which include the purpose
of the building or room, type of the building and the materials used in the building or room. The
quality of the lighting in a building can be examined based on the intensity of the light, light
contrast and the glare. According to Carlucci (2015), a number of indices are used in the
evaluation of lighting comfort including the visual comfort probability (VCP). The indoor
daylighting of buildings has also been adequately assessed by Galatioto (2016).
The acoustics of the building is concerned with the control of sounds within a room and between
rooms in a building termed as room and building acoustics respectively. The room acoustics is
concerned with the control of sound within a room thus allowing efficient communication among
the occupants of the room. However, building acoustics works to control the movement of
sounds from one room to the other such that sound from one room should not interfere with the
activities in other rooms. A number of factors can be incorporated in the design and modelling of
buildings such as hospitals so as to control sound and bring the acoustic comfort (Tan et al.,
2017).

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The Study Background
The Location of KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital
KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital is a private hospital that was started in 1981.The hospital stands in
a 5 acre land in Johor Bahru, Johor State in Malaysia. The physical location of the hospital is off
Jalan Abdul Samad in the Radio Television Malaysia surrounding areas.
Location of Location of KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital
Layout and organization
KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital consist of seven storey buildings with simple layout of the hospital
is such that it has a capacity of two hundred and fifteen. According to the hospital’s
management, the facility records about 5250 inpatients per year. There are three different
departments in the hospital namely, administrative, medical and diagnostic department. Also,