Light + Health

  I’m pleased to share my first article published in the October issue of Lighting Design + Application (LD+A), the magazine of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES). Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, the only dedicated children’s hospital in Nebraska, had outgrown its facility in Omaha and was on the verge of turning away patients in [...]

Last week, the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) unveiled the Works with WELL Program, a new product licensing opportunity designed to help product manufacturers validate and showcase how their products align with the WELL Building Standard, based on IWBI licensing criteria. Nearly 40 early-adopting companies have enrolled more than 1,000 products in the new program. To earn [...]

  The largest peer-reviewed study to date links WELL Certification with improved worker productivity, health, and creativity. Earlier this month, the study was published in Building & Environment and found that WELL Certified building occupants reported higher performing workplaces compared with non-certified building occupant responses. The researchers found that employee satisfaction across various building aspects [...]

The first company to produce an artificial skylight with a sun moving across a blue sky was CoeLux. The Italian company sprang from research by Founder, CEO, and scientist Prof. Paolo Di Trapani, in 2009. See image above. More information here. Since then, other companies have jumped into the category. Innerscene launched it’s first virtual [...]

For an upcoming article for Electrical Contractor Magazine, I recently had the opportunity to interview Mariana G. Figueiro, PhD, Director of the Light and Health Research Center (LHRC) and Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Professor Mark S. Rea. The topic: a new methodology (called SOWatt), which specifiers could use to evaluate the relative energy efficiency of luminaires in delivering circadian-effective light.

radiant Wave Switch by Legrand. Image: Legrand. Legrand now offers touchless Wave Switches to reduce the spread of germs. Wave Switches allow users to turn lights (or small motors) on and off with a simple wave of their hand. Wave Switches install easily in place of an existing switch to offer clean and convenient control [...]

In October 2022, the Mexican government passed a law ending seasonal clock changes that the Mexicans call “Summer Time” and the U.S. calls “Daylight Savings Time.” This March, most of Mexico did not ‘Spring forward,’ and are now in a permanent Standard Time. Similar legislation has been passed by the U.S. Senate, but has not [...]

Researchers at the University of Buffalo have published a study demonstrating that light therapy reduces heart disease in mice. If these results hold true in human trials, this could be an extremely important finding. Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the U.S. One in five Americans dies of heart disease. A simple, [...]

Scandinavian countries have greater acceptance of circadian light therapy for psychological disorders. A hospital in Norway, Valen Hospital, has incorporated circadian light therapy into the emergency treatment of bipolar patients with positive results. Chromaviso is a Danish manufacturer of circadian lighting and light therapy luminaires. The Valen Hospital results have been peer-reviewed and published in [...]