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Color in Healthcare Environments: A Critical Review of the Research Literature

Ruth Brent Tofle, Benyamin Schwartz, So-Yeon Yoon, Andrea Max-Royale, University of Missouri-Columbia
CHER, 2004

Executive Summary

Many healthcare providers, designers and practitioners in the field have questioned the relationship between people and color in the environment and searched for empirical reasoning for the various color guidelines in healthcare settings. The evidence-based knowledge, however, for making informed decisions regarding color application in the designed environment has been sporadic, fragmented, conflicting, anecdotal, and loosely tested.

Utilizing online searches, scanning over 3000 titles, relevant research literature is critically reviewed in the attempt to answer the following fundamental questions:

• What is empirically known about human response to color and how, if at all, color influences human perception or behavior in a specific setting?
• Which color design guidelines for healthcare environments, if any, have been supported by scientific research findings?

This monograph attempts to separate the common myths and realities in color studies and promises to play a stimulating role in the advances of color studies for the built environment, and more specifically in the design of healthcare settings.

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