VALIDATION OF THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL INDEX AND ITS ABILITY TO ASSESS IN-OFFICE AIR QUALITY

摘要

The Indoor Environmental Index (IEI) model is an empirical model that relates IEI, dependent variable, with an index of occupant symptoms, independent variable, and leads to three alternative corrective strategies. This study validates the IEI model by comparing IEI model corrective strategies predicted from occupant symptoms with those put forward by IEI calculated levels from in-office environmental measurements. Ten environmental variables were measured by three reputable contractors at three buildings for a period of one week each. Statistical analyses show that (1) main effects consultant, building, and day affect the IEI value; (2) the relative variation of IEI is smaller than that of the majority of individual environmental variables measured; (3) agreement between corrective strategies suggested by daily and weekly calculated and predicted IEI values is 67% and 78%,respectively. We assert that model predictions constitute a potent diagnostic tool that may be used periodically to assess in-office environmental quality.