Cleaning jobs linked to asthma risk
Monday, January 21, 2013 - 20:00
in Health & Medicine
A new study has found strong evidence for a link between cleaning jobs and risk of developing asthma. Researchers tracked the occurrence of asthma in a group of 9,488 people born in Britain in 1958. Not including those who had asthma as children, nine per cent developed asthma by age 42. Risks in the workplace were responsible for one in six cases of adult onset asthma – even more than the one in nine cases attributed to smoking, according to the analysis. There are many occupations that are thought to cause asthma. In this study, 18 occupations were clearly linked with asthma risk, four of which were cleaning jobs and a further three of which were likely to involve exposure to cleaning products.