nurses: a prospective cohort study

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Ind Med
• Personal Author:
  Dumas, Orianne ; Boggs, Krislyn M. ; Quinot, Catherine ; Varraso, Raphaëlle ; Zock, Jan-Paul ; Henneberger, Paul K. ; Speizer, Frank E. ; Le Moual, Nicole ; Camargo, Carlos A.
• 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.
• Subjects:
  • 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
• Volume:
  63
• Issue:
  1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/83219/cdc_83219_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 83.19 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:d6fc42781f90b7528467b8096c6ce237cab3694d4b70ad5398e8a970dd98ab45