Light + Health

While some lighting designers are taking a wait and see attitude about circadian lighting, others are taking a proactive stance. The industry may not agree on the same numbers, but there is consensus that more light in the day is positive for circadian stimulus. A panel of three experts at the National Lighting Bureau’s Annual Lighting Forum discussed these issues, focusing on the question whether the industry should wait for more research or begin implementing what we know today.

Researchers from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) recently published the latest in a series of studies exploring how light impacts alertness during the day and sleep quality at night in daytime office workers.

The California Lighting Technology Center recently announced a new, targeted collaborative with the Lighting Research and Innovation Center at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) to co-develop circadian lighting design specifications for patient healthcare and assisted living applications.

On October 3, 2019, the International Commission on Illumination issued the second edition of its position statement on non-visual effects of light, focusing on recommending the proper light at the proper time.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) recently awarded a new 5-year grant totaling $3.8 million to Dr. Mariana Figueiro, Professor and Director at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to investigate whether a long-term (6-month) lighting intervention designed to promote circadian entrainment will improve sleep, cognition, and memory in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is an “at risk” or potential prodromal stage of dementia.

Based on research suggesting a correlation between building design and human health and wellness, in 2013 Delos created the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), which launched the WELL Building Standard. As of March 2019, more than 1,500 projects encompassing 315 million sq.ft. in 48 countries have been designed to WELL certification.

Using visible light from LEDs, visible light disinfection (VLD) technology is designed to provide functional illumination that is safe for humans, while containing recipes for saturated blue/violet emission that is harmful to germs. It has been commercialized by companies like Kenall Manufacturing (Indigo-Clean) and Vital Vio, Inc., which licenses to Visa Lighting, Evolution Lighting and others.

There are two important, sometimes competing, metrics regarding Humancentric Lighting: the Equivalent Melanopic Lux (EML) and Circadian Stimulus (CS). These metrics were discussed by a panel of experts convened at the National Lighting Bureau’s most recent Annual Lighting Forum.

AlconLighting.com recently published an interview with the California Lighting Technology Center’s Talieh Ghane about the interaction between light and human health.