Traditional and environmentally preferable cleaning product exposure and health symptoms in custodians

BACKGROUND: We investigated the associations between traditional and environmentally preferable cleaning product exposure and dermal, respiratory, and musculoskeletal symptoms in a population of custodians. METHODS: We analyzed associations between symptoms and exposure to traditional and environmentally preferable cleaning product exposure among 329 custodians. RESULTS: We observed increased odds of dermal (P < 0.01), upper (P = 0.01) and lower respiratory (P = 0.01), and upper extremity (P < 0.01), back (P < 0.01), and lower extremity (P = 0.01) musculoskeletal symptoms associated with increased typical traditional cleaning product exposure. We observed significant trends for increased odds of dermal (P = 0.03) and back (P = 0.04) and lower (P = 0.02) extremity musculoskeletal symptoms associated with increased typical environmentally preferable cleaning product exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Fewer positive associations and reduced odds of health symptoms associated with environmentally preferable cleaning product exposure suggest that these products may represent a safer alternative to traditional cleaning products. Am. J. Ind. Med. 58:988–995, 2015. © 2015 The Authors. American Journal of Industrial Medicine Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.