Associate Professor Peter Dingle

Room: PhSc/3.043

Research

Indoor air quality in homes and office buildings; toxic chemical use; air pollution and health; environmental education; environmental management systems and industry; risk management, environmental leadership.

Projects

Sick Building Syndrome and Study of Indoor Air Quality in Buildings

These projects investigate the indoor air quality and climate factors and their impact on the health and well being of building occupants. Air quality factors such pollution temperature and humidity, as well as, psychological and social factors are known to impact on the sense of well being in building occupants. Projects in this area involve both monitoring and questionnaire work and provide students with both a practical and theoretical background.

Indoor Air Quality

Indoor air in homes include many potential investigations of pollutants in home environments and their effects on human health. Projects may investigate pollutants such as dust mite; formaldehyde; lead; particulates; bacteria or the project may look at the issue from a health aspect and study a disease like asthma or other allergic diseases and their relationship to indoor air quality. Recently, some of our work has focused on the level and type of dust in homes and the role it plays in children's health.

Environmental Education and Communication

It is clear that no matter how much information we have to resolve environmental problems unless the public are educated and informed we are unlikely to see any major changes. As a result environmental education is a rapidly growing area. Environmental education and training include topics which investigate the current formal and informal environmental education systems or topics related to specific environmental education projects. Two recent projects have investigated the role of environmental training in raising the level of awareness throughout industry. Another recent project has investigated the knowledge of the general public and the role that plays in changing peoples attitudes and behaviour.

Health nutrition and lifestyle

These projects investigate the role nutrition, lifestyle, environment and attitude have on the health of individuals and groups. Topics include the influence of stress, dietary factors such as soft drinks and topics such as meditation and physical activity. One current project has investigated the role of stress on antioxidant systems in the body and another on the role of soft drinks in disease and obesity.

 

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