Household use of green and home-made cleaning products, wipe form and asthma

Abstract

While exposure to irritant and sprayed cleaning products at home is known to have a harmful role in asthma, the potential health effect of some categories of cleaning products or forms, such as green and home-made products or wipes, has not been investigated.

We studied the associations of household use of different cleaning products, including green, home-made products and disinfecting wipes, with asthma based on data from the large French population-based Constances cohort.

Analyses were carried on participants included in 2017-2018 who completed standardized questionnaires on respiratory health and household use of cleaning products in 2019. Cross-sectional associations of cleaning products with current asthma (ever asthma with symptoms, attack or treatment in the past 12 months), adjusted for gender, age, smoking status, BMI and educational level, were evaluated by logistic regression models.

Analyses were conducted in 41,570 participants (mean age: 47 years, 56% women, weekly use of products/forms varied from 11% to 37%). Weekly use of irritants (OR=1.23[1.13-1.35]), scented (OR=1.15[1.06-1.26]), green (OR=1.09[1.00-1.20]) and home-made products (OR=1.19[1.06-1.34]), as well as sprays (OR=1.18[1.08-1.29]), disinfecting wipes (OR=1.21[1.09-1.34]) were significantly associated with asthma, with significant trends according to the frequency of use. When they were not co-used with irritants/sprays, associations persisted for disinfecting wipes, but were no longer significant for green and home-made products.

Weekly use of disinfecting wipes at home was associated with current asthma, similarly to weekly use of irritants and sprays, but fewer risks were observed for the use of green and home-made products.