Built Environment Issues Research Articles

142 Identifying common housing conditions affecting older people relevant to integrated Care for Older Persons in Ireland

Abstract Background The health and well-being of older people is significantly affected by housing, representing an essential aspect of preventative healthcare in the community. Good quality housing is an important factor in a person’s ability to maintain mental and physical health, as well as sustain optimal quality of life. This is particularly true for older people who may spend more time at home than other demographic groups. This study explores the linkages between housing conditions and the health and wellbeing of older people with the aim to inform housing designers, providers, and policy makers about the key aspects of healthy homes and common housing hazards, affecting older people. Methods The qualitative research programme involved an in-depth stakeholder engagement strategy, with activities including focus groups, diaries, and interviews to place the perspectives of older people at the centre of the work. The research also included a series of case study visits to the homes of patients of an Integrated Care Programme for Older People, where the research team conducted a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews with the patient, as well as a technical and quantitative survey of the home. Results Key themes identified throughout the research programme include overarching themes such as healthy ageing and housing and ageing in place; themes related to the hospital and integrated care, and the local authority; housing conditions and hazards; and built environment issues across the key spatial scales. Conclusion There is a need for better, more accessible data on the housing issues, conditions, and hazards for older people throughout Ireland. Additionally, it is essential to consider the needs of patients with additional care requirements, such as those living with dementia, as the built environment greatly impacts them.

143 Nursing home care in Ireland and the built environment: key emerging issues and insights

Abstract Background Nursing homes for older people were badly affected by COVID-19 resulting in serious impacts on residents, staff, and family members. Like other airborne infectious diseases, COVID-19 has implications for spatial practices and the built environment. Although limited research has identified certain built environment issues which impact Infection Control (IC), these issues also have a negative impact on resident quality of life. Based on the paradigm shift created by COVID-19, we explored aspects of the built environment and emerging issues within nursing homes in Ireland with key representatives/experts from different aspects of nursing home provision, policy, and IC. Methods 20 interviews were conducted with various experts, followed by a thematic analysis to analyse, and generate key themes arising from the interviews. Results Some of the key emerging issues from the interviews included designing for infection control and future pandemic resilience, climate change and its impacts on older people, innovative care models, and nursing home integration with the community. Conclusion This research demonstrates the growing awareness of the built environment as a critical partner in the nursing home health and social care model and illustrates the need for a holistic design approach across all key spatial scales to support the health/wellbeing of older people in nursing homes.

Watershed or whimper? The Australian Year of the Built Environment, 2004

The 2004 Year of the Built Environment (YBE) was an initiative of the Australian Government that aimed to raise awareness and propel positive change in built environment design for the benefit of the whole community. Adopted after successful lobbying by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, it provided an opportunity for architectural leadership and engagement with built environment governance at a time when the sustainability agenda was gaining popular momentum. An array of national- and state-level initiatives championed a range of themes from construction innovation to architectural heritage and the future of housing, with a focus on highlighting exemplars and supporting built demonstration projects. Patron-in-chief Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery described it as a “watershed year” that had the potential to influence the quality of the built environment for years to come. In contrast, the Urban Design Forum described the initiative as “a whimper” disguising a lack of ongoing budget commitment and disinterest from national leadership on built environment issues across the political spectrum. In the ongoing absence of a national built environment policy agenda in Australia, and as a coordinated approach to climate adaptation in built environment design has become more than urgent, what was the legacy of this somewhat forgotten Year of the Built Environment? This article explores this question, analysing how the year exposed the need for new forms of engagement with government that aligned with changing modes of public administration. It reflects on how the year was a catalyst for the establishment of new State Government Architect positions and influenced how the architecture profession’s involvement in built environment governance has developed since.

Is the hospital Safety Walkround effective to control the risk of contagion during COVID-19 pandemic?

BackgroundThe Safety Walk Round (SWR) is a risk assessment technique designed to decrease adverse events and improve workers attitudes about safety culture through visits and interviews about safety of care. A new field of application could be the safety requirements that hospitals have to guarantee during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our study aimed to investigate the efficacy of SWR on identifying and solving the critical issues that can increase the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in three Italian hospitals.Materials and MethodsThe project was developed during the first wave of SARS-Cov-2 pandemic, from May to July 2020, it involved 3 hospitals in Turin: Traumatology and Orthopaedic Centre, Paediatric Hospital Regina Margherita and Sant'Anna Hospital (obstetric and gynaecological hospital). Pre-triage services and outpatient waiting rooms were identified as areas at higher risk of crowding and potential non-compliance with anti-contagion rules. The first round consisted of observations focused on hands sanitation, safety social distance, PPE correct use. Than the workers of the observed areas were interviewed. Thanks their participation, the critical issues about patient safety and the potential resolutions were identified. A second round was realized to verify the implementation of the planned actions and their effectiveness in solving the issues.ResultsA total of 4907 moments were observed and the 9,1% of them was at risk of contagion. During the interviews 23 critical issues and their possible resolutions were identified. A total of 14 critical issues were solved, 4 partially solved and 5 were build environmental problems and cannot be solved. The 77% of total were completely solved, excluding built environment issues.ConclusionsSWR project was effective in involving health workers in safety promotion activities, sharing informations and improving trust between hospital managers and operators and spreading new skills about safety culture in Covid-19 pandemic contest.Key messages SWR was effective in a pandemic context. During the emergency, the front line staff were enthusiastic about the method and felt listened and guided.This has contributed to achieving the aim of safety.The study showed that SWR is a useful tool for hospital infection control. It also showed that the SWR method can be used in a time of constant change that requires adaptability like a pandemic.

An integrated Linked Building Data system: AEC industry case

Environmental assessment is a critical activity for ensuring buildings are performing according to specified requirements, and efficient, seamless exchange of building information is crucial for environmental assessment. Therefore, all those involved in built environment issues should be able to access and share not only building information but also data about products, especially environmental assessment results for the products used in building projects. Of the several approaches that have been proposed to achieve efficient information exchange, semantic web technologies are amongst the most promising due to their capability to share data and enhance interoperability between the most heterogeneous systems. This study proposes an approach that can be used to make environmental data available in the early phases of the building lifecycle. It relies on Semantic Web techniques, especially Linked Data principles, while building on emerging Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology to propose an approach that facilitates information exchange to enhance the sustainability assessment of buildings. The paper ends with an illustration of how lifecycle inventory databases can be integrated, linked to BIM software and used in exchanging environmental building data.

Validating a Safe Built Environment in High Risk Areas Using Air Sampling Methodologies

<h3>Background</h3> Construction inside of a hospital environment creates risks by increasing the amount of airborne mold in the environment, posing significant health risks to immunocompromised patient populations. Despite implementing construction risk control measures, the completed built environment may have built environment issues that could allow for mold contamination in the high risk patient area. During hospital expansion construction a new OR region and new Stem Cell Transplant unit were built. Prior to opening these new areas, IPC created an extensive air sampling plan utilizing two air sampling methodologies as due diligence to assure a safe built environment for future high risk patient use. <h3>Methods</h3> An air sampling protocol was developed for the two high risk built environments. Particulate and viable air samples were collected by a third party and sent for lab processing. All results were reviewed by IPC; any mold growth was considered a failed test. <h3>Results</h3> Air sample results were reviewed by IPC. Following multiple iterations of failed testing, problem solving and retesting, significant issues with the built environment were identified; in the OR, air balance issues and window installation; in the stem cell unit, a penetration in HEPA filter bank, air balance issues and a patio overlook door with significant air leaks. Once all issues were corrected and final air samples were negative for mold, the built environment was considered safe for patient use. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Presence of mold can create major patient safety risks if not identified and corrected prior to operational use. Conducting targeted and intentional air sampling in these environments can be a reliable mechanism to identify and correct prior to any patient impact. The air sampling methodologies described here in as an important step in ensuring a new built high risk environment is safe and ready for patients.

Changing Patterns of Commuting

Cities across the globe are reinventing themselves, driven by a variety of forces (Lyons metabolism). At the same time, technological change is dramatically altering the nature of employment and transport systems are on the cusp of radical change with the potential for wider adoption of new mobility services and autonomous vehicles (Marsden et al., 2018). As city landscapes, working practices and transport systems change, so does the nature of the commute – traditionally a regularly repeated journey between a fixed home and work (or educational) location, but increasingly a more ‘slippery’ phenomenon (Le Vine et al., 2017). Commuting has always been an important focus of transport and land use policies in urban areas. During the morning and evening ‘rush hours’, transport networks are under pressure with peak period traffic having multiple negative impacts on the functioning of cities and on the quality of urban environments. Commuting has also been shown to affect the physical and mental health of workers (Chatterjee et al, 2019). Studies of commuting are carried out across different disciplines which makes it difficult to get an overall appreciation of the topic. In this issue of Built Environment, we aimed to bring together a variety of perspectives and assessments of the state of commuting in different parts of the world and how it is evolving. The ten papers in the issue cover three continents and seven countries presenting a true diversity of settings. Each paper offers new insights on how commuting journeys vary across space and how this is influenced by spatial development and economic, technological and cultural change. All of the papers give consideration to how commuting is changing in the context examined, whether explicitly by analysing longitudinal data or implicitly by interpreting their results in the context of broader developments.

A Brief History of Health Impact Assessment in the United States

In recent decades, several factors have contributed to the increasing use of health impact assessment (HIA) in the United States. Initially in California and subsequently in other states, communities that have been traditionally disenfranchised began seeing HIA as an opportunity to address the issues impacting their lives and to increase their ability to participate in decision-making processes about those issues. Second, public health professionals began to better understand the links between health and the natural and built environments, and to use HIA as a tool to improve cross-disciplinary communication. Third, public health professionals recognized that HIA could be valuable to address economic and social issues, such as educational and wage policies, in addition to built environment issues, such as land use and transportation.

The use of reflective and permeable pavements as a potential practice for heat island mitigation and stormwater management

To help address the built environmental issues of both heat island and stormwater runoff, strategies that make pavements cooler and permeable have been investigated through measurements and modeling of a set of pavement test sections. The investigation included the hydraulic and thermal performance of the pavements. The permeability results showed that permeable interlocking concrete pavers have the highest permeability (or infiltration rate, ∼0.5 cm s−1). The two permeable asphalt pavements showed the lowest permeability, but still had an infiltration rate of ∼0.1 cm s−1, which is adequate to drain rainwater without generating surface runoff during most typical rain events in central California. An increase in albedo can significantly reduce the daytime high surface temperature in summer. Permeable pavements under wet conditions could give lower surface temperatures than impermeable pavements. The cooling effect highly depends on the availability of moisture near the surface layer and the evaporation rate. The peak cooling effect of watering for the test sections was approximately 15–35 °C on the pavement surface temperature in the early afternoon during summer in central California. The evaporative cooling effect on the pavement surface temperature at 4:00 pm on the third day (25 h after watering) was still 2–7 °C lower compared to that on the second day, without considering the higher air temperature on the third day. A separate and related simulation study performed by UCPRC showed that full depth permeable pavements, if designed properly, can carry both light-duty traffic and certain heavy-duty vehicles while retaining the runoff volume captured from an average California storm event. These preliminarily results indicated the technical feasibility of combined reflective and permeable pavements for addressing the built environment issues related to both heat island mitigation and stormwater runoff management.

Built Environment Issues in Unserved and Underserved African-American Neighborhoods in North Carolina

Urban planning has focused on built environment issues in cities such as urban sprawl, availability of green space, and infrastructure for physical activity. However, in small southern towns, there are built environment issues which currently either are understudied or completely neglected by researchers. In this article, we describe the built environment issues that burden unserved and underserved communities of color in North Carolina. We use a case study of Mebane, NC to describe how neighborhoods of color in this small town have been impacted by environmental injustice through the denial of basic amenities, particularly sewer and water services, and overburdened by unhealthy land uses through inequities in the use of extraterritorial jurisdiction and annexation statutes. These planning inequities create public health risks for residents and nearby populations.