In January 2022, Xingtong Guo presented her recent research in the conference Health Buildings 2021—America.
During COVID-19 pandemic, people’s lifestyles have been changed dramatically and an increase of depression among young adults has been observed. The longitudinal study collected data from 180 Worcester Polytechnic Institute undergraduate students to understand how indoor environmental (such as thermal, air quality, lighting, acoustic) satisfaction is related to college students’ mental health (stress, loneliness, depression, positive and negative emotion) and learning performance, this study collected data from Summer 2020 to Spring 2021. The collected survey data were analyzed using statistical mixed-effect models and cross-lagged panel models to investigate the relationship among indoor environment quality, mental health, and learning together with potential causality. The study results suggested that most college students in this study had experienced depression during COVID-19 and their stress level are significantly different among different COVID-19 phases. Moreover, students’ mental health issues are weekly but not negligible correlated with indoor environment satisfaction. However, cross-lagged panel model failed to find any causal relations among the variables.
The research is funded by NSF.
