Some cleaning products can cause breathing problems such as asthma. Researchers at UBC’s School of Environmental Health and at the Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare in BC talked to housekeepers, housekeeping managers, and Health Authority personnel to find out which cleaning products are used in BC’s hospitals, and to find out how those products are used. Some cleaning products are more hazardous than others. The list on this page can be used to find out which risk category each product belongs in. For more details on how the researchers chose the risk category for each of these cleaning products, click here.

Researchers throughout the world, including BC, have discovered that hospital cleaners are at risk of developing asthma from exposure to the cleaning products they use every day. A few research articles demonstrating the link between cleaning products and asthma are listed at the bottom of this page. There is no cure for asthma, but it can be managed or prevented.

What you can do:
Protect yourself If you currently work with any high-risk products, talk to your supervisor. Ask if there are lower risk alternatives. You have the right to know!

If you must work with high risk products,

• talk to your health and safety representative,
• reduce the amount of product that gets into the air or on your skin (avoid sprays, open mixing, and contact with bare skin), and
• ask to be fitted for appropriate personal protective equipment.

If you have asthma or breathing problems, visit your doctor. Making changes at your workplace can relieve you asthma. It is important to get the help you need.

Making changes
You can work with local occupational health and safety representatives and with hospital Infection Control to make changes that will improve the health and safety of hospital cleaners:

• Switch to low risk products.
• Switch to automatic dilution systems to reduce exposure to high-concentration chemicals.
• Reduce or eliminating the use of sprays.
• Make sure that all cleaners are fitted for appropriate personal protective equipment.

Research on cleaning products and asthma

• Kogevinas, M, et al. 2007. Exposure to substances in the workplace and new-onset asthma: an international prospective population-based study (ECRHS-II). Lancet 370: 336-341.
• Zock, JP, et al. 2007. The use of household cleaning sprays and adult asthma: an international longitudinal study. The American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine 176: 735-741.

Learn More

• Look up the hazards associated with any chemical product in your hospital on our MSDS Database.

How were the risks categorized?
All available data about cleaning products and housekeeping work practices at hospitals around Vancouver (in the Fraser, Vancouver Coastal, and Provincial Health Authorities) were compiled. For each housekeeping task, data were included on the products used, the method of application for each product, the ingredients of concern in each product (i.e. sensitizers and irritants), the concentration of each ingredient of concern in each product, the method of dilution for each product, and the presence of a fragrance in each product. Each product associated with each task was then classified as “high risk”, “medium risk”, or “low risk” based on the following decision criteria (when sufficient data for a given product was not available, the product was classified as “risk not known”).

• “High risk” products were categorized as such if either of the following criteria were met: 1) the product contains a respiratory sensitizer, 2) the product contains a respiratory irritant and is applied using a spray bottle.
• “Medium risk” products were categorized as such if none of the “high risk” criteria were met and any of the following criteria were met: 1) the product is applied using a spray bottle, 2) the product contains a respiratory irritant at a diluted concentration greater than 1%, or 3) the product contains a respiratory irritant at an undiluted concentration greater than 1% and it is diluted manually.
• “Low risk” products were categorized as such if none of the criteria for “high risk” or “medium risk” products were met.

The frequency with which each product is used clearly has an important role in determining the exposure risk associated with that product. We know that “project cleaners” (i.e. those housekeepers that do floor maintenance and carpet cleaning) use all the products associated with project cleaning at high frequency, and we know that “regular housekeepers” (i.e. those that do everything else) use all the products associated with regular housekeeping at high frequency. In other words, different housekeepers use different suites of products, but any given cleaner uses all the products in their suite at a high frequency. Without being able to follow individual housekeepers around and gather information on finer-scale differences in the frequencies of use (or exposure) for each product, we are unable to break down the categorization any further based on how often cleaners are exposed to each product. So, for the purposes of this risk categorization, we have considered the frequency of use for each product to be “high”.