Asthma symptoms can be aggravated by air quality issues at work.
Work-related asthma is a serious and often under-addressed issue in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 9 percent of asthma cases in the US are estimated to have been caused or worsened by workplace air conditions. This means that for 1.4 million adults, their job is the place where they are least able to breathe comfortably. Several states, including Massachusetts, California, Washington, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, have implemented monitoring programs to track cases of work-related asthma.
However, a new study by the CDC suggests that there is still a communication issue surrounding this problem, namely that workers are not reporting that their asthma may be work-related to their doctors. Doctors, in turn, are generally not talking to their patients about work-related asthma risks.
By reviewing data collected in the 2006 to 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Asthma Call-Back Survey, the CDC researchers determined that 9.1 percent of workers with asthma had ever been told by their doctor that their asthma might be job-related. Only 11 percent reported to their doctor themselves that they thought their asthma might have to do with their job. This means that the 9 percent figure may be much smaller than the real numbers, since only 14.7 percent of working adult asthmatics have ever had a conversation with a doctor about work-related asthma at all.
What does this mean for the average person with asthma? If you have never had a conversation with your doctor regarding factors at work that could be worsening your asthma symptoms, there's no better time than the present. For business owners, you can reduce the risk of your employees developing work-related lung problems by installing one of US Air Purifiers' high-quality office air purifiers.