Dimensions of Indoor Environmental Quality for Healthy Aging in Place
Chair(s): Jennifer A. Veitch (National Research Council of Canada, Canada), Marianne Touchie (University of Toronto)
The global population is aging: The World Health Organization notes that in 2020 the global population of people over 60 years of age exceeded the number of children younger than 5, and by 2050 the percentage of people over 60 years old will be approximately 22%. The proportion in Canada is projected to be higher, approximately 1 in 4, by 2050. The vast majority of Canadians (~85%) would prefer to remain in their own homes for as long as possible, which is known as “aging in place”. There are societal benefits to aging in place as well as individual benefits; preventive and community-based care for an individual who needs support for activities of daily living is much less costly than a long-term care home. In response to this reality, the National Research Council of Canada created the Aging in Place Challenge Program to develop technologies and innovations to enable older Canadians to remain in their own homes as they age.
Among the innovations that may be required are changes to the built environment. Building codes and standards exist to provide a lower bound to indoor environmental quality (IEQ), what might be called “the worst IEQ that one is permitted to build”. Operating guidelines are intended to support good or best-practice operation for healthy IEQ, but individuals will succeed in this only to the extent that they have the correct features or technologies in their homes and the ability and knowledge to use them effectively. Moreover, the research underlying all of these guidance documents has considered primarily the abilities and needs of healthy young or middle-aged adults. Older adults, particularly those who might have multiple chronic health conditions, might need different indoor environmental conditions than those for whom existing guidance was written.
This session will report on four aspects of a multi-task, multi-party collaborative research project in the NRC Aging in Place Challenge Program titled “Establishing Guidance for Indoor Environmental Conditions for Healthy Aging in Place,” providing early results from different aspects of the work. The first paper will summarize key findings from an online population survey of Canadian seniors, their IEQ satisfaction across the domains of temperature, ventilation, acoustics, and lighting, their current quality of life, and their plans for their future housing. The second paper, presented by a colleague from AIST in Japan, will report on a collaborative quasi-experiment testing the effects of outdoor-to indoor transmission of traffic noise on older adults’ sleep. This will be followed by two presentations deriving from a 12-month field study in 29 homes of older Canadians of their indoor environmental conditions, health status, IEQ satisfaction, and sleep. The first of these will describe the development of a tool to assess the adaptive opportunities that older adults may have available to them in their homes to improve their IEQ, taking into account the availability, functional status, and characteristics of adaptive opportunities from field study observations and the literature. The second paper will report specifically on the availability of adaptive opportunities for changing the thermal environment among these participants.
Following the presentations, the co-chairs will moderate an open discussion with audience members. We anticipate that this discussion will contribute to deeper understanding of the issues involved in providing comprehensive and integrated IEQ guidance for healthy aging in place, both in Canada and around the world.
Presentations of the Workshop
Indoor Environmental Satisfaction and Quality of Life among Older Canadians: Preliminary Survey Results
Jennifer a. Veitch1, Iara B. Cunha1, Kelsey Eakin2, Hannah Villeneuve3, Ashley Nixon1, Marianne Touchie2, William O'Brien3
1National Research Council of Canada, 2University of Toronto, 3Carleton University
Many people in industrialized countries would prefer to remain in their own homes for as long as possible. Remaining healthy while aging in place will depend on indoor environmental quality. One part of a larger NRC project on this topic has been a population survey of Canadians 60 years and older from across the country. Responses were collected online, on paper, and by telephone interview from over 400 individuals between March 2024 and March 2025. This presentation will summarize the responses to questions concerning satisfaction with all aspects of the indoor environment, and preliminary results relating quality of life to environmental satisfaction. This nationwide survey will aid in the identification of identifying those dimensions that are in greatest need of amelioration to support the needs of Canadians as they age in their own homes. Further analyses may lead to recommendations for changes to building codes, construction practice, or operating guidance, in addition to identifying gaps for further research to address.
Environmental Noise and Sleep Quality Among Older Adults: Pilot Study and Initial Discussion
Hiroshi Sato1, Manabu Chikai1, Iara B. Cunha2, Ashley Nixon2, Jennifer A. Veitch2
1National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan, 2National Research Council of Canada
Health and well-being of people is directly influenced by the indoor environmental quality of the buildings they occupy. Noise exposure, for example, is not only a cause of annoyance but it is established as a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases and it is a cause of sleep disturbance. As people age, it is possible that they become more sensitive to the adverse effects of those environmental conditions due to changes in sleep structure, yet most studies and guidance that take into account night-time noise levels are based on research with young or working-age adults. As part of a broader research project focused on establishing guidance for suitable interior conditions for adults as they age, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan, and the National Research Council of Canada are jointly investigating the effects of outdoor-to-indoor traffic noise on the quality of sleep of older adults. A quasi-controlled experiment study, to be carried on in the Greater Tokyo area, is being initiated aiming to have an overall look at how the presence of traffic noise overnight might affect the overall sleep structure and stages of adults of more than sixty years of age. The methodology and initial results and discussions of this pilot study will be presented. The future results will help to identify suitable interior acoustic conditions to support health and well-being for adults as they age, and help to shape a set of guidance for both new-build and retrofit scenarios of dwellings for aging in place.
Development of an Assessment Tool of Adaptive Opportunities to Adjust IEQ Conditions for Aging in Place
Hannah Villeneuve1, Kelsey Eakin2, Kala Sewraj1, William O'Brien1, Marianne Touchie2, Jennifer A. Veitch3, Iara B. Cunha3, Ashley Nixon3
1Carleton University, 2University of Toronto, 3National Research Council of Canada
There is an ongoing global population aging trend. Concurrently, climate change is becoming increasingly apparent and can worsen indoor environmental quality (IEQ), especially during extreme events. Older adults prefer to remain in their homes, or “age in place”, but poor IEQ may hinder this because older adults are vulnerable to poor IEQ. Conversely, good IEQ helps provide comfortable and healthy conditions to support aging in place. Older adults can use adaptive opportunities, which are adjustments to building features or themselves, to improve their IEQ experiences. However, adaptive opportunities must be available and also physically and financially accessible to occupants to be useful. In addition, other factors (e.g., preferences, social context, etc.) affect usage of adaptive opportunities. Therefore, the availability of adaptive opportunities in a dwelling and the occupant’s personal factors must be considered together. This paper describes the development of a novel tool that calculates a rating of adaptive opportunities used for adjusting IEQ in the homes of those aging in place. The assessment tool will be tested and refined using results from a year-long field study involving walkthroughs, interviews, and IEQ measurements in the homes of people aging in place in Canada. Participants were interviewed about their IEQ experiences and use of adaptive opportunities in response to IEQ discomfort scenarios they typically experience in their homes. The assessment tool considers the availability, functional status, and characteristics of adaptive opportunities from field study observations and the literature. The tool concurrently considers the preferences, abilities, and functional limitations of occupants based on personas derived from participant profiles. The tool will calculate a dwelling adaptability score for each of the thermal, visual, acoustic, and indoor air quality domains of IEQ and may help older adults assess the adaptability of their current or future dwellings (e.g., for downsizing) for aging in place.
Residential Indoor Thermal Adaptive Behaviour Availability and Use for Older Adults in Canada
Kelsey Eakin1, Hannah Villeneuve2, William O'Brien2, Marianne Touchie1, Iara B. Cunha3, Jennifer A. Veitch3, Ashley Nixon3
1University of Toronto, 2Carleton University, 3National Research Council of Canada
The residential thermal environment is important for providing comfort and health to building occupants at all ages. However, this is especially true for older adults who have reduced physiological thermal adaptive ability as they age. As such, the thermal adaptive behaviours of older adults (i.e., the conscious actions people take to adjust their thermal environment) become an even more important factor in protecting the health and comfort of older adults. The thermal adaptive behaviours available to and used by older adults were investigated, along with the reasons for older adults’ thermal adaptive behaviour preferences. To study this, the thermal adaptive behaviours, both available and used in summer and winter, were determined using descriptive statistics of a population survey (n=430). The reasons why older adults prefer certain thermal adaptive behaviours were identified using a thematic analysis of interviews with older adults (n=29). Based on this analysis, the majority of older adults adjusted their primary mechanical heating/cooling (59% in summer; 80% in winter) or clothing (56% in summer; 85% in winter) when these opportunities were available to them. Regardless of the behaviour the reasons for the choice of thermal adaptive behaviours was consistent, with the majority citing time it took to conduct the thermal adaptive behaviour and the time between the behaviour and resulting comfort as the primary drivers of their behaviour. Our findings indicate that homes would be more comfortable if thermal adaptive behaviours were quicker to use and had faster response times.. The results of this study are the critical first step in determining how thermal adaptation can be made more readily available to older adults, with the ultimate goal of improving the indoor thermal comfort and health of older adults in their homes.
Indoor Environmental Quality to Meet the Needs of Older Residents: Discussion on How to Create Effective Standards and Guidelines
Hiroshi Sato
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan
This presentaion discusses the importance of designing and managing indoor environments for older adults to continue living at home, focusing on the development of effective standards and guidelines. Some reports suggest that providing a comfortable environment for older adults can significantly reduce medical costs.
Another direction of the discussion is organized at the Joint Working Group 4 (JWG4) of ISO/TC163 and TC205. It is developing the ISO 52007 series, which addresses indoor environmental quality (IEQ) to balance building energy performance and indoor comfort. In these discussions, older adults are broadly categorized as "occupants with special needs (children, elderly, handicapped, etc.)."
The physical characteristics of older adults vary with age, and their needs for different environmental factors are diverse. Therefore, it is urgent to determine how to accommodate older adults in homes designed for younger generations.
Furthermore, when older adults live at home for extended periods, it is also necessary to consider the indoor environment for caregivers. To provide comprehensive services, it is important to examine IEQ from multiple perspectives and ensure an appropriate indoor physical environment. Additionally, it is necessary to incorporate features that can adapt to changes in the physical characteristics of older adults, referencing standards such as ISO 25554.
To ensure Aging in Place, it is essential to develop and implement standards that consider the evolving physical characteristics of older adults, ensuring their comfort and reducing medical costs.
