The thesis, titled Identifying Emerging Technologies and Techniques to Assess Indoor Environmental Quality and its Impact on Occupant Health, consists of an in-depth literature review outlining the various impacts of building factors on inhabitant health. Approximately 120 studies analyzing how environmental factors influence occupant health were reviewed and 25 were used to build this literature review. The thesis provides insight into the definitions of well-being, health, and the built environment and analyzes the relationship between the three. This complex relationship has been at the forefront of academic research in recent years, especially given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Essentially, an individual’s health and well-being is encompassed by their physical, mental, and social state of being. Due to the increasing amount of time spent in indoor environments the built environment influences these measures of health and well-being through various environmental factors (Indoor Air Quality, humidity, temperature, lighting, acoustics, ergonomics) defining the overall Indoor Environmental Quality. This thesis reviewed the mentioned intervention and experimental studies conducted to determine how fluctuations in environmental factors influence reported health results of occupants in the short and long term. Questionnaires, interviews, medical tests, physical measurements, and sensors were used to track occupant health measures. Sensors are also used to record environmental factor levels and are now beginning to be incorporated into the building production process to promote occupant health in healthy and smart buildings. The goal is ultimately to develop these smart and healthy buildings using study results and advancing technologies and techniques as outlined in the thesis.

The majority of trust research has focused on the benefits trust can have for individual actors, institutions, and organizations. This “optimistic bias” is particularly evident in work focused on institutional trust, where concepts such as procedural justice, shared values, and moral responsibility have gained prominence. But trust in institutions may not be exclusively good. We reveal implications for the “dark side” of institutional trust by reviewing relevant theories and empirical research that can contribute to a more holistic understanding. We frame our discussion by suggesting there may be a “Goldilocks principle” of institutional trust, where trust that is too low (typically the focus) or too high (not usually considered by trust researchers) may be problematic. The chapter focuses on the issue of too-high trust and processes through which such too-high trust might emerge. Specifically, excessive trust might result from external, internal, and intersecting external-internal processes. External processes refer to the actions institutions take that affect public trust, while internal processes refer to intrapersonal factors affecting a trustor’s level of trust. We describe how the beneficial psychological and behavioral outcomes of trust can be mitigated or circumvented through these processes and highlight the implications of a “darkest” side of trust when they intersect. We draw upon research on organizations and legal, governmental, and political systems to demonstrate the dark side of trust in different contexts. The conclusion outlines directions for future research and encourages researchers to consider the ethical nuances of studying how to increase institutional trust.

Phthalates are ubiquitous in the built environment and are used across various fields, despite known endocrine disruptive properties, and other associated health hazards, including abnormalities in reproductive health and development. I investigated the presence of phthalates in the built environment using the Health Product Declaration (HPD) repository to survey for products containing these chemicals, investigated the literature for possible health effects and alternatives to phthalates, and conducted a laboratoy-based feasibility study of urinary biomarkers associated with phthalates using wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) on a US university campus at the building-scale. Of the 5,278 products in the HPD repository, 73 contained phthalates and were most commonly found in windows, doors, flooring, sealants, insulations, and furnishings. Alternative plasticizers (cardanol, epoxidized soybean oil, hydrogenated castor oil) usage were identified in 10 products from HPD repository. The two wastewater samples analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) showed that dimethyl phthalate (DMP) was detectable, as well as its human metabolite, monomethyl phthalate (MMP), observed at a concentration of 163-202 ng/L. These results indicate low human exposure from the building materials in the limited convenience sample investigated. Future studies of building scale wastewater-based epidemiology are recommended to investigate these and other phthalates commonly found in the built environment, including diisononyl phthalate (DINP) and diisononyl hexahydrophthalate (DINCH).