Offices may harbour asthma risks, new research suggests
Working in offices can give people asthma from exposure to substances such as printer toner and cleaning products, according to new research by an NHS doctor.
The findings show that working in an office is not necessarily safe and that working from home may be better to protect people’s health, said Dr Christopher Huntley.
“Occupational asthma” is a recognised risk for certain types of workers. It is usually found in those whose work involves chemicals, including metalworkers and people who make paint or mattresses or who work with cotton, flax or hemp dust.
However, substances found routinely in offices can trigger asthma, said Huntley, who works at the Birmingham regional occupational lung disease service at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS trust. Such substances include floor tile adhesive, printer toner and cleaning products as well as mold in offices’ air conditioning and ventilation shafts that have been wrongly installed. Nearby workshops, and paint and fumes from vehicles, can also act as triggers, he added.
The findings come as thousands of office-based employees prepare to start working part-time in their usual workplaces after many months of working from home.
Huntley will present his findings on Monday to the European Respiratory Society’s (ERS) international congress. They are based on a study that he and colleagues undertook of 47 office workers with occupational asthma who sought help at the Birmingham lung disease service.
“Any work environment can induce occupational asthma if it harbours a respiratory sensitiser. This is a substance that triggers an irreversible allergic reaction, such as paint spray or dust.
“We usually think of an office as a safe environment, so it’s possible that when asthma is diagnosed in office workers, occupational causes may be overlooked. As a result, there has been very little research on this issue,” said Huntley.
“However, we have been diagnosing increasing cases of occupational asthma in patients who work in office environments, as well as detecting clusters of cases in specific offices.
“Although we only looked at the patients who were referred to our service, and this is a relatively small study, it is still one of the largest studies reporting occupational asthma in office workers. We discovered some key causes to be aware of in an office environment, but there will certainly be others,” he said.
Fewer new patients with the condition have been referred during the Covid-19 pandemic and those already suffering with it have seen their health improve while they have been working from home.
“Working from home has been useful for patients both in establishing their diagnosis and as a form of nonpharmacological treatment. Allowing workers with occupational asthma to continue working from home may help keep office workers in their jobs as they require fewer sick days,” said Huntley.
Arzu Yorgancıoğlu, the chair of the ERS’s advocacy council and a professor of lung disease at Manisa Celal Bayar University in Turkey, who did not take part in the research, said: “Because we tend to think of office environments as relatively safe … it is likely that there are more patients out there with undiagnosed office work-related asthma.
“For office workers with asthma who experience an unexplained deterioration in their symptoms, this study highlights the importance of identifying and removing any potential occupational triggers.”