Environmental Health And Building Related Illnesses

Abstract

Malaysia has good environmental laws to protect the outdoor environment and public health. However there are no laws governing indoor air quality (IAQ) and the knowledge among the public about its importance is also lacking. Environmental professionals think it is not a priority and this influences the policy decisions in the country. Therefore there is a need to create awareness by way of research, education and other promotional activities. What is much needed at this time is the establishment of standards for the conduct of risk assessment studies. To establish standards we need reliable data which can be used to develop appropriate guidelines for the purpose of mitigation and adaptation programmes. IAQ can have significant influence on health resulting in drop in productivity and economy of a country. It has been estimated that in the US, building related illnesses (BRI) symptoms have a relationship with decrease (3 to 5%) in work performance in an affected population resulting in an annual loss of US$60 billion in revenue. However, based on efficient management programmes they have also projected that the potential annual savings can be in the region of US$10 to 30 billion. This establishes that fact that good management programmes based on efficient guidelines is of economic value to a country and wellbeing of the population. The IMU has embarked on a research programme to collect the much-needed data for the framing of a good IAQ guideline for Malaysia. Malaysia has been ranked as the ninth best in the world in tackling domestic and global environmental problems by the Clean Air Initiative Asia 1 based in the Philippines. This ranking is based on an International Index of 133 countries and the reason given for the good ranking is attributed to good governance which is an important criteria for environmental performance. Malaysia in the past has been criticized for uncontrolled deforestation and exploitation of other natural resources leading to reduction in biodiversity. The Malaysian experience with the various haze episodes, has spurred the health authorities and other relevant agencies such as non-governmental organisations and universities in the country to put in place the necessary infrastructure to deal with adverse health effects arising from these environmental disasters. This and other such initiatives has created awareness among the public on the relevance of air pollutants to ill health thereby increasing the public concern for mitigating and adaptation measures to be put in place. However building related illnesses has still not gained the same prominence as those related to outdoor air quality. As such, Malaysia definitely needs to identify and highlight the importance of the impact of indoor air quality (IAQ) on health. It is therefore important to