title: [On the evaluation of health factors in high-rise buildings. 3. Sociological investigations and questioning of physicians about living in high-rise buildings (author's transl)].
abstract: It can be rightly assumed that there are persons who evidently prefer to live in high-rise buildings. They should not be prevented from doing so as long as no evidence is produced that this preference neither does any serious harm to the people concerned nor causes any major risk of damage to the community. To our knowledge, accurate and sufficiently extensive empirical investigations have not yet been undertaken. One cannot help feeling that general shortcomings (e.g. inadequate town planning, housing planning, workmanship etc.) lead to a hunt for scapegoats. The high-rise building appears to be a rewarding object for such intentions. There is conclusive evidence that dwellings of good and poor quality exist. Both can be found in the detached single-family house and in the tower block. What has to be claimed is mainly a good location and good workmanship, for both are much more important than the type of the dwelling. The most striking deficiencies which were found in the high-rise buildings of Graz are mistaken selection of the location and poor workmanship. The improvement of the living conditions of a larger number of people will therefore depend more on the elimination of these shortcomings rather than on the promotion of certain types of dwelling. Subsequent to these sociological investigations, a physician questioned the general practitioners prevailingly attending to tenants of the high-rise buildings under study. There is no trend toward an increased incidence of objectively determinable diseases among the people living on the upper storeys of the high-rise buildings under review. This holds good for both the adults and the children. By contrast, the factor "noise" evidently influences health to some extent. The influence of this factor is partly so overrated that it outweighs, in particularly severe cases, any other adverse environmental condition.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001317:Austria; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006262:Health; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009017:Morbidity; D009622:Noise; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014504:Urban Health
vernacular_title: Zur gesundheitlichen Beurteilung von Hochhäusern. 3. Mitteilung: Soziologische Untersuchungen und Befragung von Arzten über das Wohnen im Hochhaus.