Details:

Alternative Title:
Am J Ind Med
Personal Author:
Dumas, Orianne ; Boggs, Krislyn M. ; Quinot, Catherine ; Varraso, Raphaëlle ; Zock, Jan-Paul ; ... More +
Dumas, Orianne ; Boggs, Krislyn M. ; Quinot, Catherine ; Varraso, Raphaëlle ; Zock, Jan-Paul ; Henneberger, Paul K. ; Speizer, Frank E. ; Le Moual, Nicole ; Camargo, Carlos A. Less -
Description:
Background:

Exposure to disinfectants among healthcare workers has been associated with respiratory health effects, in particular asthma. However, most studies are cross-sectional and the role of disinfectant exposures in asthma development requires longitudinal studies. We investigated the association between occupational exposure to disinfectants and incident asthma in a large cohort of US female nurses.

Methods:

The Nurses’ Health Study II is a prospective cohort of 116,429 female nurses enrolled in 1989. Analyses included 61,539 participants who were still in a nursing job and with no history of asthma in 2009 (baseline; mean age: 55 years). During 277,744 person-years of follow-up (2009–2015), 370 nurses reported incident physician-diagnosed asthma. Occupational exposure was evaluated by questionnaire and a Job-Task-Exposure Matrix (JTEM). We examined the association between disinfectant exposure and subsequent asthma development, adjusted for age, race, ethnicity, smoking status, and body mass index.

Results:

Weekly use of disinfectants to clean surfaces only (23% exposed) or to clean medical instruments (19% exposed) was not associated with incident asthma (adjusted hazard ratio [95%CI] for surfaces, 1.12 [0.87–1.43]; for instruments, 1.13 [0.87–1.48]). No association was observed between high level exposure to specific disinfectants/cleaning products evaluated by the JTEM (formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, bleach, hydrogen peroxide, alcohol quats or enzymatic cleaners) and asthma incidence.

Conclusions:

In a population of late career nurses, we observed no significant association between exposure to disinfectants and asthma incidence. A potential role of disinfectant exposures in asthma development warrants further study among healthcare workers at earlier career stage to limit the healthy worker effect.


Subject:
[+]
Article
Asthma
Cleaning Products
Disinfection
Healthcare Workers
Occupational Asthma

Source:
Am J Ind Med. 63(1):44-50
Pubmed ID:
31692020
Pubmed Central ID:
PMC6891131
Document Type:
Journal Article
Funding:
UM1 CA176726/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; PCOFUND-GA-2013-609102/People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013)/International ; R01 OH010359/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States
UM1 CA176726/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; PCOFUND-GA-2013-609102/People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013)/International ; R01 OH010359/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States Less -
Place as Subject:
United States
Collection(s):
CDC Public Access
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:d6fc42781f90b7528467b8096c6ce237cab3694d4b70ad5398e8a970dd98ab45
File Type:

Supporting Files

• nihms-1055752.nxml

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