Discovery of associative patterns between workplace sound level and physiological wellbeing using wearable devices and empirical Bayes modeling

Karthik Srinivasan; Faiz Currim; Casey M Lindberg; Javad Razjouyan; Brian Gilligan; Hyoki Lee; Kelli J Canada; Nicole Goebel; Matthias R Mehl; Melissa M Lunden; Judith Heerwagen; Bijan Najafi; Esther M Sternberg; Kevin Kampschroer; Sudha Ram

doi:10.1038/s41746-022-00727-1

Discovery of associative patterns between workplace sound level and physiological wellbeing using wearable devices and empirical Bayes modeling

NPJ Digit Med. 2023 Jan 13;6(1):5. doi: 10.1038/s41746-022-00727-1.

Authors

Karthik Srinivasan¹, Faiz Currim², Casey M Lindberg^{3

4}, Javad Razjouyan^{5

6

7}, Brian Gilligan⁸, Hyoki Lee⁹, Kelli J Canada⁸, Nicole Goebel¹⁰, Matthias R Mehl¹¹, Melissa M Lunden¹⁰, Judith Heerwagen⁸, Bijan Najafi¹², Esther M Sternberg^{4

13}, Kevin Kampschroer⁸, Sudha Ram²

Affiliations

¹ School of Business, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA. karthiks@ku.edu.
² Department of Management Information Systems, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
³ HKS Inc, Denver, CO, USA.
⁴ Institute on Place, Wellbeing, and Performance, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
⁵ Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (IQuESt), Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
⁶ Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA.
⁷ Big Data Scientist Training Enhancement Program, VA Office of Research and Development, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
⁸ Office of Federal High Performance Green Buildings, U.S. General Services Administration, Washington, DC, USA.
⁹ Best Buy, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁰ Aclima, Inc, San Francisco, CA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
¹² Center to Stream HealthCare in Place (C2SHIP), Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹³ Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.

Abstract

We conducted a field study using multiple wearable devices on 231 federal office workers to assess the impact of the indoor environment on individual wellbeing. Past research has established that the workplace environment is closely tied to an individual's wellbeing. Since sound is the most-reported environmental factor causing stress and discomfort, we focus on quantifying its association with physiological wellbeing. Physiological wellbeing is represented as a latent variable in an empirical Bayes model with heart rate variability measures-SDNN and normalized-HF as the observed outcomes and with exogenous factors including sound level as inputs. We find that an individual's physiological wellbeing is optimal when sound level in the workplace is at 50 dBA. At lower (<50dBA) and higher (>50dBA) amplitude ranges, a 10 dBA increase in sound level is related to a 5.4% increase and 1.9% decrease in physiological wellbeing respectively. Age, body-mass-index, high blood pressure, anxiety, and computer use intensive work are person-level factors contributing to heterogeneity in the sound-wellbeing association.