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• Lower carbon dioxide levels are associated with higher divergent creativity. • Lower fine particle levels could be associated with higher divergent creativity. • Temperatures spanning 22–26 °C are associated with higher divergent creativity. • A consistent association was not observed for indoor moisture. • Promoting indoor air quality and normative temperatures can support creative work. Few studies have examined associations between indoor conditions and creativity, despite its importance to knowledge work. Accordingly, we investigate associations between indoor air and thermal conditions and divergent creative thinking scores among 86 young adult knowledge workers in office buildings across four countries over approximately six months. Indoor environmental monitors at participant workstations provided measurements of indoor carbon dioxide and fine particulate matter concentrations, temperature, and relative humidity. Hourly averages of these environmental parameters were paired with participant responses to the Alternative Uses Test, a validated assessment of divergent creative thinking, for incorporation into mixed effects statistical models. The models show statistically significant evidence that higher indoor carbon dioxide concentrations, altered by ventilation and occupancy, are associated with lower divergent creative thinking scores. A 100-ppm increase in CO 2 is associated with a 3 % (95 % CI: 0–5 %), 4 % (95 % CI: 1–6 %), and 11 % (95 % CI: 5–16 %) negative difference in the expected fluency, flexibility, and originality count scores, respectively; and an 11 % decrease (95 % CI: 5–16 %) in the expected elaboration score. There is suggestive evidence of lower divergent creative thinking scores with higher fine particulate matter concentrations; however, concentrations and sensor accuracy were low and limit these findings. The thermal estimates suggest a temperature range of roughly 22–26 °C to be associated with higher divergent creative thinking scores. Overall, this study suggests that maintaining temperatures within a normative range and focusing on ventilation, to lower concentrations of carbon dioxide and unmeasured but correlated pollutants, can help promote creative thinking in working environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic triggered an increase in remote work-from-home for office workers. Given that many homes now function as offices despite not being designed to support office work, it is critical to research the impact of indoor air quality (IAQ) in homes on the cognitive performance of people working from home. In this study, we followed 206 office workers across the U.S. over one year under remote or hybrid-remote settings during 2021–2022. Participants placed two real-time, consumer-grade indoor environmental monitors in their home workstation area and bedroom. Using a custom smartphone application geofenced to their residential address, participants responded to surveys and periodic cognitive function tests, including the Stroop color–word interference test, Arithmetic two-digit addition/subtraction test, and Compound Remote Associates Task (cRAT). Exposures assessed included carbon dioxide (CO 2) and thermal conditions (indoor heat index: a combination of temperature and relative humidity) averaged over 30 min prior to each cognitive test. In fully adjusted longitudinal mixed models (n ≤ 121), we found that indoor thermal conditions at home were associated with cognitive function outcomes non-linearly (p < 0.05), with poorer cognitive performance on the Stroop test and poorer creative problem-solving on the cRAT when conditions were either too warm or too cool. Most indoor CO 2 levels were <640 ppm, but there was still a slight association between higher CO 2 and poorer cognitive performance on Stroop (p = 0.09). Our findings highlight the need to enhance home indoor environmental quality for optimal cognitive function during remote work, with benefits for both employees and employers. • Office workers were followed for one year while working from home during 2021–22. • Home indoor air quality was tracked with real-time commercial monitors. • Cognitive function was regularly tested through 3 brain tests in custom phone app. • Poor thermal conditions were associated with worse cognitive function or creativity. • Carbon dioxide, even at low levels, was slightly associated with poor cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human occupants have a profound influence on indoor environments, although there is limited information on means to cost-effectively assess occupant metrics in all types of buildings. Multiple measures of occupancy (i.e., the number of occupants and the duration of their presence) and occupant activity (i.e., the number of occupant movements through room doorways) were investigated in ten single-patient rooms in a new hospital in Chicago, Illinois as part of the Hospital Microbiome Project, with the overarching goal of determining occupant characteristics to inform an investigation of interactions between humans and microbial communities. Four relatively low-cost, non-invasive methods to estimate time-resolved occupancy and occupant activity were developed using data from (1) CO 2 concentration sensors installed in patient rooms and the supply air streams serving each room and (2) non-directional doorway beam-break sensors installed at each patient room doorway. A method that utilized data from both sensors produced the most accurate estimates and was used to characterize time-varying occupancy and occupant activity. Daily occupancy varied among rooms, with median values ranging from 0 to 3 persons per hour. Occupant activity exhibited less variation on average (approximately 8 doorway movements per hour), but reached high levels on certain days for some patient rooms. No consistent relationship was observed between estimated occupancy and occupant activity, indicating that one metric cannot be inferred from the other. This study shows that this dual-sensor methodology provides a relatively inexpensive, non-invasive, accurate approach to estimate occupancy and occupant activity in an environment with rigorous privacy and security limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]