Summary of Sloan symposium: healthy buildings 2015-Europe.

The Sloan Symposium, "Microbiology of the Indoor Environment," was held to facilitate dialog on biological research between scientists and practitioners in the field which was complementary to the adjoining activities of the ISIAQ Healthy Buildings Europe conference, Eindhoven, Netherlands, on 20-21 May 2015. Multi-media archives of these special adjunct proceedings are presented.

The Hospital Microbiome Project: Meeting Report for the 1st Hospital Microbiome Project Workshop on sampling design and building science measurements, Chicago, USA, June 7th-8th 2012.

This report details the outcome of the 1st Hospital Microbiome Project workshop held on June 7th-8th, 2012 at the University of Chicago, USA. The workshop was arranged to determine the most appropriate sampling strategy and approach to building science measurement to characterize the development of a microbial community within a new hospital pavilion being built at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The workshop made several recommendations and led to the development of a full proposal to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as well as to the creation of the Hospital Microbiome Consortium.

Improving the health of workers in indoor environments: priority research needs for a national occupational research agenda.

Indoor nonindustrial work environments were designated a priority research area through the nationwide stakeholder process that created the National Occupational Research Agenda. A multidisciplinary research team used member consensus and quantitative estimates, with extensive external review, to develop a specific research agenda. The team outlined the following priority research topics: building-influenced communicable respiratory infections, building-related asthma/allergic diseases, and nonspecific building-related symptoms; indoor environmental science; and methods for increasing implementation of healthful building practices. Available data suggest that improving building environments may result in health benefits for more than 15 million of the 89 million US indoor workers, with estimated economic benefits of $5 to $75 billion annually. Research on these topics, requiring new collaborations and resources, offers enormous potential health and economic returns.