Many Often Silent About Asthma-Causing Agents at Work
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iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — Americans will put up with a lot at the workplace in order to maintain a steady income, going as far as enduring certain hazards that might jeopardize their health. Potential health hazards include airborne exposures that can cause respiratory diseases such as asthma.
And yet, as Jacek Mazurek of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health explains, many people who have contracted asthma at work are fearful of telling that to their physicians because it could affect their employment.
In a study of over 50,000 adults with jobs across the U.S., it was learned that only 15 percent of adults suffering from asthma actually talked with their doctors about how where they work might exacerbate their problem.
Even more shocking is that work may have possibly affected the estimated 46 percent of employed people with asthma.
If airborne exposures do exist at certain workplaces, people run the risk of developing permanent lung damage, which may not be treatable with medications.
Therefore, Mazurek suggests that a “thorough occupational history is critical to first establishing a diagnosis of work-related asthma, and then putting measures in place to prevent further exposure, or to treat it.”
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