Light + Health

The Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) recently announced that Mariana Figueiro, PhD has been appointed to lead two new programs focused on aging and on sleep and circadian research.

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is investigating the impacts of working from home or quarantining indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic on individual daily light exposures, and how this may be affecting sleep quality and psychological health. In May 2020, the LRC invited people who had been staying home due to the pandemic to complete a short survey about their sleep, mood, and daily light exposure. A total of 708 people responded, which some interesting results.

LightingEurope endorsed the recent UV-C safety guidelines published by the Global Lighting Association (GLA) and called on European Union Member States to ensure UV-C products can continue to be placed on the EU market.

The Illuminating Engineering Society and the International Ultraviolet Association are partnering to develop American National Standards for the measurement and characterization of UV-C device performance.

On its website, the International Ultraviolet Association makes a case that UV disinfection can play a role in a multibarrier approach to reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. This may lead to increased applications for GUV in buildings, but there are risks. My latest contribution to ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR spells it out.

Robert Karlicek, Jr., director of the Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications (LESA) Center, will present a live webcast for LEDs Magazine on June 18, 2020 at 1PM EDT on the topic, “Germicidal UV-C radiation: Fact and Fiction about Killing Pathogens.”

Due to growing international interest in the use of ultraviolet (UV) radiation to manage the risk of COVID-19 transmission, the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) recently published a Position Statement, which follows two CIE publications related to UV-C applications that were made available for free.

The growing understanding of the relationship between light and health has fueled a new lighting trend in circadian-supportive lighting. Some lighting professionals are embracing it while others are taking a wait-and-see approach. While there may be debate about implementation, there is widespread agreement that sufficient light falling on the eye for an adequate amount of time during the day is supportive of circadian health. The question now is should practitioners wait for more research, or should they begin implementing circadian-supportive lighting strategies based on what is known today?

For an article I produced about germicidal ultraviolet (GUV) for the June issues of ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR, I had the pleasure of engaging the Illuminating Engineering Society’s Mark Lien in a short interview about GUV. The IES recently produced a guide to GUV.