The wellbeing benefits of natural light and ventilation

A number of independent peer reviewed studies have provided compelling evidence that access to plenty of natural daylight can result in patients being discharged from hospital sooner. In his insightful report, The Distinctive Benefits of Glazing, Professor David Strong brings many of these studies together and presents them as a compelling case for the benefits of daylight. 

One of these studies concludes: “A significant relationship appears to exist between indoor daylight environments and a patient’s average length of stay (ALOS) in a hospital. Twenty five per cent of the comparison sets showed that, in the brighter orientations, as in rooms located in the SE (south east) area, the ALOS by patient was shorter than that in the NW (north west) area by 16-41 per cent. Further, no dataset showed a shorter patient ALOS in the NW area than in the SE.” The report went on to show that “high illuminance in the morning seemed to be more beneficial than in the afternoon”.1

In 2006, a retrospective study by Anjali Joseph2of myocardial infarction patients in a cardiac intensive care unit treated in either sunny or dull rooms, found that female patients spent less time in sunny rooms (2.3 days in sunny rooms; 3.3 days in dull rooms). Mortality in both sexes was consistently higher in dull rooms (39/335 dull rooms; 21/293 sunny rooms).