Domestic cleaning increases asthma risk

Working as a domestic cleaner puts one at a significantly higher risk of developing asthma, as reported by Spanish researchers. Asthma, which affects over 100 million people worldwide, has been linked to cleaning work, but this study was the first to distinguish between cleaning in different environments. Researchers at Barcelona's Municipal Institute of Medical Research took a sample of 4,500 from a city near Barcelona, limiting their study to women with less than eight years of education.They found the proportion of women with work-related respiratory problems was 12 percent among those who had worked as cleaners compared to five percent for those who had not. Women who worked in domestic cleaning were more likely to suffer from asthma and bronchitis than those cleaning outside private homes, although those cleaning in health centres were also at an elevated risk.

It is important that employers take the necessary steps to help protect their staff and that the general public is aware of the risks of inhaling certain chemicals, including cleaning products. This had proved to be the best way to identify a large group of domestic cleaners, a predominantly female occupation, and a job that tends not to have a formal contract. It also gave researchers a control group with a similar socio-economic profile. The study was part of a wider effort to understand why global asthma rates are rising on average by 50 percent every decade. The new message is that people who clean private homes are most at risk. What is needed now is to find out what specific products are linked to this risk. These preliminary investigations point towards cleaning products containing irritants, particularly bleach, and vapours created by inappropriate combinations of those products.

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