Objectives Ocular discomfort is a prevalent health complaint in offices. It is hypothesized that, in addition to individual and occupational factors, the buildings' indoor environment may affect eye complaints. However, insight in potential building-related causal factors, needed to allow development of effective prevention strategies in building design, operation and maintenance is limited. This study aimed to investigate the relations between modern office building characteristics and dry eye complaints. Methods Comprehensive characteristics of 167 office buildings in eight European countries, were linked to questionnaire data from 7441 office workers. Multilevel modeling was applied to explore relations between building characteristics and self-reported dry eye complaints, in a cross-sectional study. Results Among office workers investigated, 34% declared dry eye complaints during the past four weeks. Majority of workers (91.2%) experiencing these symptoms, reported improvement on days away from the office. After full adjustment, the regression model revealed a significant increased risk for: proximity (<100 m) to potential sources of outdoor air pollution (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.06–1.88), absence of operable windows (OR: 1.70, 95% CI: 1.34–2.16), portable humidifiers in the offices (OR: 1.58, 95% CI: 1.18–2.11), exposed concrete and/or plaster (OR: 1.29, 95% CI 1.02–1.62) and dispersion and/or emulsion paint as wall covering in offices (OR: 1.20, 95% CI: 1.01–1.41). A negative association was found for cleaning surfaces at least once per week (OR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.61–0.91). Conclusions Building characteristics were associated with dry eye complaints of office workers. Focused studies are recommended to investigate underlying causes to prevent these symptoms.@en

In the European research project OFFICAIR, a procedure was developed to determine associations between characteristics of European offices and health and comfort of office workers, through a checklist and a self-administered questionnaire including environmental, physiological, psychological, and social aspects. This procedure was applied in 167 office buildings in eight European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Finland) during the winter of 2011-2012. About 26 735 survey invitation e-mails were sent, and 7441 office workers were included in the survey. Among respondents who rated an overall comfort less than 4 (23%), 'noise (other than from building systems)', air 'too dry', and temperature 'too variable' were the main complaints selected. An increase of perceived control over indoor climate was positively associated with the perceived indoor environment quality. Almost one-third of office workers suffered from dry eyes and headache in the last 4 weeks. Physical building characteristics were associated with occupants' overall satisfaction (acoustical solutions, mold growth, complaints procedure, cleaning activities) and health (number of occupants, lack of operable windows, presence of carpet and cleaning activities). OFFICAIR project provides a useful database to identify stressors related to indoor environmental quality and office worker's health.@en