Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Ventilation on Intellectual Productivity

Hayata Kuramochi, Ryuta Tsurumi and Yoshiki Ishibashi ()
Additional contact information
Hayata Kuramochi: Formerly of Faculty of Law, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Ryuta Tsurumi: Nikken Sekkei Research Institute, Tokyo 101-0052, Japan
Yoshiki Ishibashi: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 8, 1-12

Abstract: Indoor air quality (IAQ) influences the health and intellectual productivity of occupants. This paper summarizes studies investigating the relationship between intellectual productivity and IAQ with varying ventilation rates. We conducted a meta-analysis of five studies, with a total of 3679 participants, and performed subgroup analyses (arithmetic, verbal comprehension, and cognitive ability) based on the type of academic performance. The task performance speed and error rate were evaluated to measure intellectual productivity. The effect size of each study was evaluated using the standardized mean difference (SMD). In addition, we calculated a dose-response relationship between ventilation rate and intellectual productivity. The results show that the task performance speed improved, SMD: 0.18 (95% CI: 0.10–0.26), and the error rate decreased, SMD: −0.05 (95% CI: −0.11–0.00), with an increase in ventilation rate. Converting the intervention effect size on the SMD into the natural units of the outcome measure, our analyses show significant improvements in the task performance speed: 13.7% (95% CI: 6.2–20.5%) and 3.5% (95% CI: 0.9–6.1%) in terms of arithmetic tasks and cognitive ability, respectively. The error rate decreased by −16.1% (95% CI: −30.8–0%) in arithmetic tasks. These results suggest that adequate ventilation is necessary for good performance.

Keywords: productivity; ventilation; indoor air quality; school; meta-analysis; systematic-review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/8/5576/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/8/5576/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:8:p:5576-:d:1127110

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().