Discovery
Wellness is a rapidly growing industry, and is projected to pass one trillion dollars in 2017. Though the supplement and cosmetic industries have capitalized on this growth over the last decade, the real estate industry has remained silent – until now. Delos is a pioneer of innovative, evidence-based solutions for improving health and wellness through the environments in which we live and work.
Achieving Wellness
Delos has partnered with doctors from Columbia University Medical Center to perform a rigorous review of medical literature relating health to indoor environmental quality, architecture, behavioral psychology, and other innovative building technologies. These findings were organized into a comprehensive database that organizes each of these environmental features to their related effects on human health. Delos’ database is continually being expanded and refined as new research and technology emerges.
Framework
Delos has built a robust framework for organizing and employing its research findings. The interactive graphic below is a visual representation of our internal database, which houses over 1,000 peer-reviewed studies. The database divides all aspects of the built-environment into seven major categories, referred to as Concepts: Air, Water, Light, Nourishment, Fitness, Comfort, and Mind. Each of these Concepts is further divided into Markers, which are the specific environmental conditions that have a demonstrable link with some Domain of Human Health. These Domains are divided into 12 categories: Cardiovascular, Cosmetic, Respiratory, Emotional, Metabolic, Gastrointestinal, Health literacy, Longevity and Aging, Immune, Sleep, Musculoskeletal and Cognitive. The colored chords connecting Concepts to Domains of Health represent studies that link Markers to Health Domains. The width of each chord is proportional to the number of studies forming the connection.
Please use your mouse to hover over any Concept or Health Domain to see its associated linkages.
This diagrammatic representation of Delos’ database is illustratively useful in several ways. It conveys an accurate sense of the complex relationships between our surroundings, lifestyle and health. The chart also gives us a clear picture of the relative importance of Marker groupings. Some of these relationships may be intuitive, e.g. we would clearly expect air quality to be closely linked with respiratory health. But several relationships are more subtle, like Light’s surprisingly broad effect across several Domains.