Buildings, the suppression of seasonal response and the effects on health

The function of a building is to provide not just shelter and comfort, but to actively promote a healthy physiology. In reviewing the fields of environmental medicine and biometereology the authors propose that as buildings provide the main climate that people live in, this may affect seasonal response and could be a prime causal agent for ill health and 'sick building syndrome'. Flexible and seasonal changes of building use are introduced and parallels are drawn with marine environments for relearning physiological systems of adaptation. Conclusions include a rationale for looking at health problems within buildings by utilizing bodies of knowledge that already make useful links between climate and health. If this knowledge can be used as a predictive tool in the design and control of the built environment then it could make a significant impact on health and assist strategic decision-making in allocating resources towards an 'engineered' health care environment, as a major factor in primary health care.