{"title":"Association of the built environment, demographic and socioeconomic factors with indoor environmental complaints: A community-level study","authors":"Zhao Dong , Zhonghua Gou , Isabelle Y.S. Chan","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2026.103773","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Indoor environmental complaints are indications of indoor environmental issues that affect occupants' comfort and health. Although some research has examined the built environment's effect on objective indoor environmental quality, few have investigated the role of demographic and socioeconomic factors in subjective indoor environmental complaints. Therefore, this study took New York City (NYC) as the case site, aiming to investigate the association between indoor environment complaints and the built environment, demographic factors, and socioeconomic factors. We conducted statistical analyses using government open data on indoor environmental complaints and community district profiles. Descriptive statistics revealed a significant disparity in indoor environmental complaints among different community districts in NYC. Furthermore, correlation and hierarchical regression analyses revealed a significant relationship between demographic and socioeconomic factors and indoor environmental complaints, even when controlling for built environment factors. In detail, individuals under the age of 18 and foreign-born residents reported fewer indoor environmental complaints. Those who self-identified as having limited English proficiency also had fewer indoor environmental complaints. Finally, based on our analysis, we developed a set of strategies to address indoor environmental complaints. This study introduces a novel perspective to indoor environmental research, offering valuable insights for communities, city managers, and related departments in formulating strategies to address indoor environmental complaints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 103773"},"PeriodicalIF":8.5000,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Habitat International","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397526000652","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2026/3/9 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Indoor environmental complaints are indications of indoor environmental issues that affect occupants' comfort and health. Although some research has examined the built environment's effect on objective indoor environmental quality, few have investigated the role of demographic and socioeconomic factors in subjective indoor environmental complaints. Therefore, this study took New York City (NYC) as the case site, aiming to investigate the association between indoor environment complaints and the built environment, demographic factors, and socioeconomic factors. We conducted statistical analyses using government open data on indoor environmental complaints and community district profiles. Descriptive statistics revealed a significant disparity in indoor environmental complaints among different community districts in NYC. Furthermore, correlation and hierarchical regression analyses revealed a significant relationship between demographic and socioeconomic factors and indoor environmental complaints, even when controlling for built environment factors. In detail, individuals under the age of 18 and foreign-born residents reported fewer indoor environmental complaints. Those who self-identified as having limited English proficiency also had fewer indoor environmental complaints. Finally, based on our analysis, we developed a set of strategies to address indoor environmental complaints. This study introduces a novel perspective to indoor environmental research, offering valuable insights for communities, city managers, and related departments in formulating strategies to address indoor environmental complaints.
期刊介绍:
Habitat International is dedicated to the study of urban and rural human settlements: their planning, design, production and management. Its main focus is on urbanisation in its broadest sense in the developing world. However, increasingly the interrelationships and linkages between cities and towns in the developing and developed worlds are becoming apparent and solutions to the problems that result are urgently required. The economic, social, technological and political systems of the world are intertwined and changes in one region almost always affect other regions.