Light + Health

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has recently released a free open-access circadian stimulus (CS) calculator to help lighting professionals select light sources and light levels that will increase the potential for circadian-effective light exposure in architectural spaces, utilizing the CS metric. Developed by LRC researchers, the CS metric is a new [...]

In this visual presentation, the Lighting Research Center’s Mariana Figueiro discusses the aging eye’s response to light and what lighting practitioners should do about it. Check it out here.

The Lighting Controls Association (LCA) has published a new course to enhance its popular Education Express program: EE303: Tunable-White Lighting. As acting education director of LCA, I was happy to have the opportunity to author this content. LED lighting technology promises many benefits, one of which is practical color output tuning. Popular approaches include full-range, [...]

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Roos, Vice President Product Design, Juno Lighting Group (Acuity Brands). The topic: lighting and health. I’m happy to share his responses with you here. The interview informed an article I wrote for the August 2016 issue of tED. DiLouie: What do we currently know with a fair [...]

Nearly three quarters of U.S. architects say the health impacts of buildings are influencing their design decisions. That finding parallels a strong market demand by building owners, with a solid two-thirds surveyed also reporting that health considerations affect how they design and construct buildings. These findings and others were recently released in a new report, [...]

DOE is offering a series of webinars on healthcare lighting. Both start at 1:00 PM EST and last for 60 minutes: Tuesday, October 4: Evidence-Based Design for Healthcare Lighting: Where’s the Evidence? Presenters: Anjali Joseph, Clemson University, Robert Davis and Andrea Wilkerson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory The nonvisual effects of light have captured a lot [...]

Below is my contribution to the August issue of tED Magazine on the topic of lighting and health. Reprinted with permission. For millions of years, sunrise and sunset set the human body clock, or circadian system. This system produces and regulates bodily functions such as sleep-wake cycles, body temperature and hormonal release based on 24-hour [...]

Lighting tailored to the needs of an individual can improve sleep and reduce depression and agitation in persons with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a recent study led by Dr. Mariana Figueiro, Light & Health Program Director at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. The study, published in the April [...]

Republication of Postings from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solid-State Lighting Program by Jim Brodrick, SSL Program Manager, U.S. Department of Energy Light sources are typically evaluated in terms of how much light they produce (in lumens) relative to how much power they draw (in watts). From lighting designers to building owners to consumers, [...]