TY - JOUR T1 - Association of household cleaning agents and disinfectants with asthma in young German adults JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med SP - 684 LP - 690 DO - 10.1136/oemed-2016-104086 VL - 74 IS - 9 AU - Tobias Weinmann AU - Jessica Gerlich AU - Sabine Heinrich AU - Dennis Nowak AU - Erika von Mutius AU - Christian Vogelberg AU - Jon Genuneit AU - Stefanie Lanzinger AU - Saba Al-Khadra AU - Tina Lohse AU - Irina Motoc AU - Viola Walter AU - Katja Radon Y1 - 2017/09/01 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/74/9/684.abstract N2 - Objectives We scrutinised the association of private use of household sprays and disinfectants with asthma incidence in young adults in the transition from school to working life.Methods Between 2007 and 2009,2051 young adults aged 19–24 years living in two major German cities took part in the Study on Occupational Allergy Risks II. Self-reported exposure to household sprays and disinfectants was characterised according to a composite score for frequency of use as no use (score=0), low use (score between 1 and the median), medium use (score between the median and the 90th percentile) and high use (score above the 90th percentile). Two outcome variables (current asthma and current wheezing) with four mutually exclusive categories (never, incident, persistent and remittent) were used for the risk analyses. Multinomial logistic regression models examined the association between the frequency of using household sprays and disinfectants with asthma and wheezing adjusting for potential confounders.Results Compared with no use, high use of disinfectants was associated with a more than twofold increased odds of incident asthma (OR 2.79, 95% CI 1.14 to 6.83). In addition, low/medium use of disinfectants was associated with remittent asthma (OR 2.39, 95% CI 1.29 to 4.47). The evidence for an association between high usage of household sprays and asthma incidence was weak (OR 2.79, 95% CI 0.84 to 9.20).Conclusion Our results support the hypothesis of an association between the use of cleaning products and elevated risks for asthma and wheezing in young adults at the start of working life. ER -