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strongly correlated with SBS symptom prevalence, there was no correlation
between positive specific IgE and SBS symptoms. Paradoxically, the
increased prevalence of work-related SBS symptoms was mainly associated
with individuals reporting a history of asthma or allergy but having a neg-
ative IgE test. Apparently, individuals who report SBS symptoms tend to
interpret such symptoms as allergies.
B.
Psychosocial phenomena and factors
Building/work environments are characterized by behavior dynamics
among occupants and between occupants and building management.
Human behavior has often been cited as the principal cause of complaints.
1.
Mass psychogenic illness
Prior to the present era of increased scientific understanding of problem
buildings and causes of occupant complaints, investigators often failed to
identify any causal factor in complaint investigations. As a consequence,
outbreaks of illness with high prevalence rates were diagnosed and reported
in the medical literature as having been caused by psychological factors.
These were variously described as mass hysteria, hysterical contagion, epi-
demic hysteria, psychosomatic illness, epidemic psychogenic illness, and
mass psychogenic illness. Common to all such reports were (1) a sudden
onset of illness (2) the perception by investigators that illness problems
became worse as a consequence of verbal and visual contact among those
affected, (3) high prevalence rates among females, and (4) investigators were
unable to identify a causal agent of either an infectious or toxic nature.
Notably, a very high percentage (circa 75%) of such episodes were reported
in school buildings.
Though terms such as
and its synonyms have
been widely used and carry an aura of medical authority, these putative
phenomena were based on anecdotal reports of field investigators. There
is no credible scientific evidence that mass psychogenic illness is a real
phenomenon.
In most instances, problem buildings have a characteristic dynamic
related to the behavior of individuals with health/comfort/odor complaints,
with various levels of individual and group emotion. The extremity of emo-
tion varies with circumstances involved. These include, for example, the
suddenness of problem onset, occupant perception of risks or threats to them
personally, an inability to convince building management that a problem
exists, and individual lability.
In buildings where there is no dramatic onset of symptoms or sudden
awareness of “toxic” chemical odors, occupants conduct their daily activities
unaware that symptoms and discomfort they are experiencing are related to
their building/work environment. This is apparent in systematic studies of
noncomplaint buildings which, nevertheless, show relatively high build-
ing/work-related symptom prevalence rates. In such buildings and those
mass psychogenic illness
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