Lighting to Support Human Health and Wellbeing

This course will provide information on how light affects people through human vision, perceptual, and the circadian/alerting system. The presentation will start with basic concepts of each system and how they work. The presentation will then review lighting characteristics affecting the visual and perceptual systems, and how these characteristics impact visual acuity, glare, comfort, and color perception. The remainder of the presentation will describe lighting characteristics affecting human health and wellbeing through the circadian system including how light can impact sleep, mood, cognition, behavior and other factors. Content will include instruction on designing lighting to meet the requirements of both the UL24480 Lighting Design Guideline for Circadian Entrainment, and the WELL Building Standard. Content will also cover how our eye physiology changes as we age and how light can mitigate some of these effects.

Learning Objectives

• Define light
• Understand the human visual, perceptual, and circadian systems and the characteristics of lighting that affect each of these systems
• Articulate the requirements of commonly used guidelines and recommended practices for the design of healthy lighting
• Define the process to design lighting that supports human health and wellbeing in residential and commercial spaces