Relation between occupants' health problems, demographic and indoor environment subjective evaluations: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey study in Java Island, Indonesia

This study aimed to evaluate the link between health problems, demographic factors, and the indoor environment quality of residents in Indonesia. We conducted a cross-sectional design study through a questionnaire survey with 443 respondents aged between 12 and 81 years. The questionnaire was concerned with previous health problem occurrences associated with thermal discomfort experiences, indoor environments, economic conditions, and basic anthropometric factors. Logistic regression with the odds ratio (OR) was applied to evaluate the tendency of different respondent groups to suffer from certain health problems, when compared to reference groups. Furthermore, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to incorporate certain factors (economic conditions, thermal discomfort experiences, and perceived indoor environments) into a single model to understand their direct and indirect effects on health conditions. The results indicate that economic conditions are the most significantly associated with health problems. Furthermore, we found that the low-income group was the most vulnerable to health problems, including coughing, puking, diarrhoea, odynophagia, headaches, fatigue, rheumatism, fidgeting, skin rashes, muscle cramps, and insomnia (OR: 1.94-6.04, p