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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 06191990 - 2.1 2-001 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS Contra FROM: Phil Batchelor, County Administrator, Costa P� County DATE: June 19, 1990 °.srq,�wu, - SUBJECT: California Department of Health Services Baseline Study of Healthy Buildings SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION Approve participation in the California Department of Health Services, U. C. Berkeley "Bay Area California Healthy Building Study. " FINANCIAL IMPACT - None BACKGROUND The State Department of Health Services Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology section in conjunction with U. C. Berkeley researchers are doing a study to establish baseline data for normal office buildings. They have been called to investigate potential "problem buildings" around the State. In the past, however, the lack of data on normal building environmental conditions hampers evaluation of building related complaints. The study will include 12 public buildings around the Bay Area. Three Contra Costa County buildings are included in the study. The study will involve air sampling and other environmental measurements. Only small, representative areas of each building will be studied, including a limited number of employee questionnaires. The study staff will provide notices explaining the study for distribution to employees. It is important to emphasize that the study is a baseline data study and is not a response to any complaints or problems identified with any particular building. The information gained from the study will be of value to all agencies for future building design improvement. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: V YES SIGNATURE: r RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S): ACTION OF BOARD ON ,June 19, 1990 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED X OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS _ I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE X UNANIMOUS(ABSENT ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS N THE DATE SHOWN. CC: General Services Director ATTESTED — /6? /-990 Health Services Director PHI BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF Personnel SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR Risk Management County Administrator BY M382 (10/88) �����/�•'�'✓ ,DEPUTY STAYE„OF, CAU€ORNIA—HEALTH AND WELFARE AGENCY GEORGE Mr-MUTAN, Ga"rwr DEPARTMENT of HEALTH SERVICES 2151 BERKELEY WAY P KRKEIEY, CA 94704 THE CALIFORNIA HEALTHY BUILDING S'T'UDY Information for Building Occupants Your office building is being included in a study of office buildings and office workers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The study involves a total of 12 public office buildings, chosen to include a variety of different building types, to compare how office workers feel in different environments. This is not a study investigating buildings where workers are known to be dissatisfied or where there are known environmental problems. We are, instead, studying a representative group of buildings, to see what factors seem to be associated with more satisfied, coadortable, and healthy workers. We hope that this will help us learn how to design healthy buildings, and that is why we call this "The California Healthy Building Study." The study is being conducted by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, the California Department of Health Services, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. We are studying only. art of your building. We have chosen that area because it represents typical office space in the building, not because we have heard that workers there are particularly satisfied or dissatisfied with their office environment. If you are in the study area, you will receive another notice with further details. We will perform environmental measurements and distribute a questionnaire there. In the near future, you may see researchers placing equipment at different places in the building. We will be placing most of our equipment in the particular area that we are studying, and this will allow us to measure such things as temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide levels, ventilation, and other environmental factors. As part of our measurements of ventilation in the building, we will be placing small tracer sources on walls throughout the entire building; these diffuse out very small quantities of a safe, commonly used tracer compound, and allow us to estimate the amount of outside air that comes into the building. The questionnaire we distribute will ask workers in the study area about various aspects of their work environment, including their experience of comfort and health while at work. Results of our study will be available when all our data is analyzed. Should you have any questions about this project, now or later, please contact rite at the following number: 4151540-3657 Mark J. Mendell,M.P.H. California Department of Health Services V + • CDHS. Mendell 2M CALTMRNIA 13M&= BUILDING $T"LT17'St SUMMARY of MCEDLTRES The Healthy Building Study is being conducted by researchers at the California Department of Health Services, the University of California at Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The study is designed to produce several kinds of useful information about buildings nPA selected because of complaints or dissatisfaction: 1) background data on comfort and health levels among office workers; 2) information on how these levels of comfort and health vary among different types of workers, and in different types of buildings; and 3) relationships between these comfort and health measures and a number of environmental factors. Information now available on office worker comfort and health is not very rcprescntative, as it has been collecteil iiiusdy In buildings chosen because of widcsprcad complaints. This study is dlffelenL: we are studying buildings where we do not yet know how the workers feel, to see what factors in buildings are associated with more satisfied, comfortable, and healthy workers. We hope that this will help us learn how to design healthy buildings, and thaL is wily we gill olds "The California Healthy Building Study." Information from our study should also prove useful as reference data for those who have to deal with "problem building" situations. The study includes a representative sample of buildings selected from publicly-owned office buildings in California; this phase will include buildings in the counties of Alameda. Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties. Buildings have been chosen based on location, size, and type of ventilation system, and not because of known worker dissatisfaction. Permission of management will be obtained for all spaces studied, for access to the workspace and for permission to administer the questionnaire. Employees in spaces to be studied, as well as major employee unions, will then be notified in advance of the actual data collection, to minimize chances of surprise or labor/management friction related to the study. Within each building chosen, researchers will meet with the building engineer or other appropriate personnel, for help in characterizing the building as to age, size, type of construction and materials, and type of vPntilatinn dPcign Within each building selected, only one or Nro spaoes or groups of adjacent offices, containing 40 to 50 workers, will be studied. Within these areas, researchers will set up a few silent and unobtrusive instruments, run by automatic timers, to take environmental measurements for the following week. Measurements will include temperature, relative humidity, ventilation rate, and levels of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds. Measurement of ventilation rate involves the release of a commonly used nontoxic tracer compound, at extremely low (parts-per- trillion) levels, into the indoor air. Small, thimble-sized tracer sources will be deployed throughout the building. STATE 6F CALIF(*N1A--MEALTH AND WELFARE AGENCY GEORGE DEUKMVIAN. Gerenw DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES 2151 BERKELEY WAY BERKELEY, CA 94704 R Contra Costa. County Board of Supervisors June 19, 1990 THE CALIFORNIA HEALTHY BUILDING STUDY The Healthy Building Study is being conducted by researchers at the California Department of Health SarltirPc; thr? T Tn,iversity of California at Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. 711e study is designed to gather background information on office worker comfort and health; such information, not currently available, will be useful as reference data in dealing with "problem building" situations, and in improving building design. The study has already been approved by head officials of the State of California Department of General Services, the Alameda County General Services Agency, the Contra Costa County (;Pnpril SPrvii aC no.pnrtr!1ent, and the Chief Administrative Officer of the County of San lFraneisco. The study includes a representative sample of buildings selo.ted from publicly=owilud uffice buildings in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, And San rrancisco. Duildings will be studied this suatiner. Tho ttiidy injrnl,rurr, lanol:trilsive envirQnawntal illiauurementc, including temperature, relative humidity, ventilation rate, and levels of volatile organic compounds, as well as a voluntary 15 minute questionnaire for workers, asking about symptoms, comfort, and other aspects of the work environment. Our study design minimizes chances that studying a building might somehow cause discontent where none existed before, as we will be 1) studying workers in one or two relatively small areas within each building, and 2) making it clear to participants that this is a representative survey of "healthy" buildings, rather than an investigation of buildings with known problems. The Contra Costa County buildings we would like to include in our study are 1) the eidnlirLi011utiun Duilding ut 100 J tlt OLIPW III IULIULtulLu, 1) the Ileallll Dulkling At 595 Center StrpPt in MartinP7, anrd A) thc? Administration Building at 6:1 Pine Street in Mnrtindr.. Within each building we have dins in urLly a faw byaLu , yruvidil% between 50 and 100 workers per building . tT: report of study rerrults will be made available to participating workcrs and Agenc1Q5, Thi,6ii lesullb bltuuld be Lif hitvrmt tv thu,--c owning or managing office huiltlingc, anti will 11P hP1l71f111 ir1 #11th f11,t1,1XQ dQsigI1 of safe, h$a1t113r, .i,n{l comfortable office buildings. We would appreciate your cooperation in the conduct of this study. Mark J. Mendell, M.P.H. Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology Branch 415/540-3657 2 Disruption of work will be minimal, and all aspects of the study are designed to minimize possible worker concerns arising out of the study, AU building.-, will he studied bat�veen Junc and September, 1990. The Contra Costa County buildings we would like to include in our study are 1) the Administration Building at 100-37th Street in Richmond; 2) the Health Building at 595 Center Street in Martinez, and 3) the Administration Building at A51, Pine Street in Martinez. Within each building wt-. ?nave chosen only a few r.pner.-a, providing bet%yuun 50 and 100 WOrkers per building (the clerical office In We Richmond AdrAlfiistratJon Building; suites 100, 200, and 300 in the Health Building; and the Personnel and Risk MaLnageaieut ufftees in the Martinez AdrnWstratlon Building). I jinfig-rAtniri t-h,;if %%v Fading tho otudy oxi tlit, age Lla Uf t1le CURUIR Costa County Board of Supervisors meeting of June 19, as a consent Item. I am enclosing a half-page summary of the study for the supervisors, and ror you a more detailed two page description, with a copy of a notice for workers in the buildings. I will also mail you clean copies, separately. Please feet free to call me. Sincerely, Mark J. ; ndell, M.P.H. Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology Section 5900 Hollis St., Suite E Emeryville. CA 94608 attachments (3) STATE OF CALIFORNIA—HEALTH AND WELFARE AGENCY GEORGE DEUKMEJIAN Govempr DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES 2131 BERKELEY WAY BERKELEY, CA 94704 d- (415)540-3657 June 8, 1990 DeRoyce Bell Deputy County Administrator Contra Costa County 651 Pine Street, 11th floor Martinez. CA 94553 Mr, Bell: I am sending you this letter, per our phone conversation earlier, to request phrmaii r :n tQ Include a, number iat Cgntra 'Cesta :Aunty bialidingo in a study of public office buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our study, the California Healthy Building Study, is being conducted by researchers at the California Department of Health Services, the University of California at Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Information from this study- will help In designing uMce euvlluliaieliLs where office worlCery can be comfortable and healthy, T'he importance of Wy wLi-iil), h tv la 16w fwvuw un baAldings that huivo VA boon aaiaatad bacouaa of worker tminplaints or dissatisfaction. Other studies reported in this country have all focused on buildings with known prubleins, but have never lila any background data from "normal- buildings for comparison. Such background data is what this study will provide: 1) data on comfort and health levels among office workers in a variety of buildings; 2) data on a number of environmental factors within the buildings, such as temperature, humidity, and ventilation rate; and 3) data on the relationships between these comfort and health measures and the environmental factors, Our study will include 12 buildings, chosen to be representative from a list of all public office buildings in the Bay Area (that is, buildings owned by vithvr sst1iis, u9untier., or the State of CXdfornla). The rtudy-ha c already been approved for their buildings by head officials of the State of California ni;par tr11Mri.q of GreriF:ral Services, the 14Y5lr cda Cclonty General Sen lces Agency. theContraCostarotntyGeneral -Services Department, and the thini! Ijit-We�041,ve VA-dave-VVtnky Vf-Sun- F1Gne1iOVV.- F' rAhelw rc , for the particular spaces we have scicctcd to study within thcse buildings, we have so far obtained approval from department heads to study their workers in 11 of the 12 buildings. Within each building, the study involves: 1) setup of equipment during the first week; 2) t.;,king of environmental measurements and samples during the second week; and 3) administration of a brief (15 minute) questionnaire to office workers at the beginning of the third week.