A Study on the Impact of High-rise Living on the Health of Residents

The high-rise apartment is considered to be a representative housing type in Korea and many people believe this housing type is inevitable because it provides convenience and economy without consuming vast amounts of scarce land resources. However, many debates have been arisen because some have expressed concern that high-rise living may jeopardize the health of residents. The objectives of the current study are to analyze the impacts of the residential floor level of high-rise apartment buildings on the health status of residents and to identify the detrimental factors. The study methods are as follows: (1) Based on the previous studies, detrimental factors concerning the health status of residents, which are currently being raised as an issue, have been analyzed. (2) An analysis has been carried out on residents who have received a medical check-up at the health promotion center of a tertiary medical center, in order to ascertain the correlation between their present medical symptoms and their residential floor level. (3) Based on the results of primary medical examinations, an analysis has been performed to identify the correlation with the residential floor level. Thus, detrimental factors regarding the health status of residents have been extracted based on objective data. The results were as follows: (1) Homogeneous results indicating that residents at a higher-floor level of apartment housing had a poor health status are not reliable. (2) Higher-rise living may potentially have a detrimental effect on the respiratory system. (3) Lower-rise living may is exposed to inflammatory factors probably due to the exterior environment. The focus of this study has been to find out whether there is a significant correlation between high-rise living in apartment housing and the health problem of residents. Further study is essential to find out the detrimental factors affecting the health status and to prepare the appropriate measures. Henceforth, further systematic studies are warranted to protect the residents at high-rise apartment buildings.