Housing and health evaluation related to general comfort and indoor thermal comfort satisfaction during the COVID-19 lockdown

ABSTRACT

Health evaluation of the indoor environment is an important part of the housing study. During the recent COVID-19 lockdown and the increase of longer indoor stays pose a measured threat to general health conditions of residents, especially those that live in more compact and populated living environments. For health-oriented studies that focus on the analysis of indoor environments, many variables should be taken into consideration that could also help to optimize natural lighting, natural airflow, better privacy, less noise from neighboring housing units/buildings, etc. Hence, this study focuses on satisfaction analysis of both general comfort and indoor thermal comfort. By evaluating these, we are able to shed light on inequalities that exist across a large body of 10 housing typologies in the UK. The sample-based satisfaction analysis is representative to indicate the correlations between multiple factors, and specifically those that could have negative impacts on the living indoor environments and human health. The findings of this study suggest that based on the collected data, there is a definite link between dissatisfaction rates and the implications of the housing conditions. Under the circumstances of the lockdown period, the study’s findings could help to find solutions for better indoor environment design, upgraded standards, and pathways for new policy guidelines. A discussion on correlation analysis highlights the issues that are important for the study of housing and health.

KEYWORDS:

• Housing
• health
• general comfort
• thermal comfort
• residents’ satisfaction
• COVID-19

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thanks all participants, and especially those 500 qualified participants in this study. The author also thanks the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2020.1817225

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71950410760].