Fatemeh Goodarzi, Kavitha Palaniappan, Manikam Pillay and Mahmoud Ershadi
Exposure to poor indoor air in refurbished buildings is a matter of health concern due to the growing concentrations of various contaminants as a result of building airtightness…
Abstract
Purpose
Exposure to poor indoor air in refurbished buildings is a matter of health concern due to the growing concentrations of various contaminants as a result of building airtightness without amendment of ventilation, or the use of building materials such as glue, paint, thinner and varnishes. Recent studies have been conducted to measure indoor air pollutants and assess the health risks affecting the quality of life, productivity and well-being of human beings. However, limited review studies have been recently conducted to provide an overview of the state of knowledge. This study aims to conduct a scoping review of indoor air quality (IAQ) in the context of refurbished or energy-retrofitted buildings.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic screening process based on the PRISMA protocol was followed to extract relevant articles. Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed were searched using customised search formulas. Among 276 potentially relevant records, 38 studies were included in the final review covering a period from 2015 to 2022.
Findings
Researchers mapped out the measured compounds in the selected studies and found that carbon dioxide (CO2) (11%) and total volatile organic compounds (11%) were among the most commonly measured contaminants. Two trends of research were found including (1) the impact of ventilative properties on IAQ and (2) the impact of introducing building materials on IAQ.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study lies in summarising evidence on IAQ measurements in refurbished buildings, discussing recent advancements, revealing significant gaps and limitations, identifying the trends of research and drawing conclusions regarding future research directions on the topic.
Details
Keywords
Nini Xia, Sichao Ding, Tao Ling and Yuchun Tang
Safety climate plays an important role in the high-risk construction industry. Advances have been made in the understanding of construction safety climate in terms of four…
Abstract
Purpose
Safety climate plays an important role in the high-risk construction industry. Advances have been made in the understanding of construction safety climate in terms of four interrelated themes, specifically, its definition, measurement, antecedents and consequences. However, knowledge remains fragmented as the studies are scattered, and a systematic review covering these four themes is lacking. To address this research gap, this study aims to perform a systematic literature review of construction safety climate literature regarding the four themes.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol guidelines, 178 eligible articles were obtained. This study provided thematic analysis of the 178 papers to identify what is known and what is not yet fully known regarding the four themes of construction safety climate. This study also conducted a descriptive analysis to identify the influential scholars, keywords, theories and research methods used by the literature, and finally presented an integrative framework directing future research.
Findings
The literature has not reached a consensus on the definition and measurement of construction safety climate. While it has identified the impact of safety climate on both behavioral and accident consequences, it has paid less attention to the antecedents and their underlying mechanisms regarding safety climate. Fang D. and Lingard H. are identified as the most influential authors in this field. “Questionnaire” and “safety behavior” are the keywords most closely related to safety climate. Unfortunately, the existing evidence for the causal relationships between safety climate and its antecedents and consequences is weak, as many studies lack clear theoretical substance, use a concurrent research design and focus only on individual-level climate perceptions. Finally, to support the development of construction safety climate around the four themes, potential research directions and research methods supporting them are illustrated.
Originality/value
This review makes contributions by integrating existing construction studies covering its definition, measurement, antecedents and consequences. This review also makes contributions to specific themes: no review exists on the antecedents of construction safety climate, and this review fills that gap; with regard to consequences, the existing reviews focus either on safety outcomes or safety behavior, but this review included both of them and further elaborated the different theories underpinning the relationships between safety climate and them. It is hoped that this systematic review will be helpful to the research community toward developing a nomologic network and promoting knowledge integration with respect to construction safety climate.