The findings are important due to the "size and projected growth of the healthcare industry". Over a 5-year period, healthcare workers accounted for 16 percent of all confirmed cases of work-related asthma.

Most of the healthcare workers (67 percent) developed "new-onset" asthma. "These were primarily nurses or other healthcare workers who had never had asthma in their lives, or who had been symptom-free for two years or more," said lead author Elise Pechter, an industrial hygienist in the occupational health surveillance program of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The most common exposures among healthcare workers with work-related asthma were to latex and disinfectants that can cause asthma, and to numerous other chemicals that can exacerbate asthma, including cleaning products, renovation materials, mold and poor indoor air quality.

"Work-related asthma among healthcare workers can be prevented," Pechter emphasized, "by replacing powdered latex gloves with non-latex or low-allergen powder-free gloves and using disinfectants selectively."

The lessons from these surveillance data are important in reducing the burden of asthma and reducing risk factors for hundreds of thousands employed in the healthcare industry.

Source: American Journal of Industrial Medicine