Indoor Air May be Hazardous to Women’s Health
by Ruth Schechter on 04/18/10 at 11:59 am
Vacuuming the carpet, making the bed, cooking dinner, or using room freshener may be hazardous to women’s health. These activities all release potentially harmful allergens and pollutants. However household air pollution is not regulated, putting respiratory health at risk.
Indoor air pollution can be up to 10 times worse than outdoor air pollution because enclosed areas allow pollutants to accumulate. And because women—including those employed outside the home—tend to take on the majority of household duties, their risk of exposure to harmful elements generated during housecleaning is greater.
“It has long been known that airborne particles can contribute to lung and heart disease,” says Lynn Hildemann, PhD, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a Clayman Institute faculty research fellow. “However, regulation of pollutants has focused on outdoor air, even though people in developed countries spend most of their time indoors.”
Research in southern Bangladesh: for 90 minutes, twice a day, smoke from this cookstove (woman shown wearing a particle monitor) is at concentrations that are almost 20 times as high as the U.S. 24-hr fine particle standard.
Hildemann recently took part in a study that looked at the effects of indoor air pollution on women in villages in southern Bangladesh. The women cook by burning debris and leaves indoors in crude unvented clay stoves, creating dense buildups of smoke for several hours a day. Hildemann found that on a daily basis, the women breathed concentrations of airborne particles that were 15 times greater than the village men, who spend their time outdoors fishing. She also noted that respiratory illnesses among the very young were prevalent.
“More young children die from respiratory illness there than from diarrheal diseases,” she says. “But parents do not associate these deaths with smoke exposure, even though the mothers keep their youngest children close by while they cook.”
While the Bangladesh study was focused on identifying economic incentives for changing cooking methods, Hildemann became curious as to whether this health disparity between the sexes translated to developed nations.
She tracked down a large-scale U.S. study that compared gender and employment and found that most people spend about 90 percent of each day indoors. Women tend to spend more time in the home—as much as 12 percent—and 2 to 4 percent more time in the kitchen, the room with the greatest concentration of pollutants from cooking. Both sexes spend less than 5 percent of their time outdoors.
In a study to assess indoor activity and pollutant exposure, she and her team measured airborne dust levels caused by vacuuming. “The person doing the vacuuming gets 250 times more exposure to airborne dust than someone sitting nearby in a chair,” she says. “In fact, dust kicks up even if the vacuum isn’t on.”
An expert in assessing human exposure to air contaminants, Hildemann suggests removing carpets from the home and staying away from any product with pine or lemon scent, which reacts with other pollutants to create particles that are easily inhaled. She would also like to see clearer labeling so consumers can decide what products to use, but regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA do not oversee quality controls in the home.
“There is a connection between traditional gender roles and differences in air pollution exposure,” Hildemann says. “We need to know more about the relationships between locations, activities, and pollutant exposure levels. From there we can figure out how to reduce indoor exposure to air pollutants.”
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Wellescent Health Blog
Apr 18th, 2010
When I initially read the title of the article, I was thinking that the content of the article was likely to have an inordinate feminist bias. However, I was very wrong and the magnitude of the figures was startling. With the allergens in carpet and the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in many cleaning products, women are being exposed to pollution levels that might make working in a regulated chemical plant far safer.
That said, there is really no way to effectively police indoor pollution levels directly. Instead, the products being sold must be regulated to minimize the chemical compounds being released into the air. It would also seem to make sense to open the windows when we are cleaning the house.
Carol Muller
Apr 26th, 2010
Take a look at the Green Science Policy Institute’s work on attempting to reduce the requirements (now in place in California – this is NOT just an issue for developing countries and housekeepers) that mandate carcinogenic flame retardants in household furnishings (regulations promulgated by lobbyists of corporations which manufacture these chemicals) based on scant evidence that doing so will reduce deaths from fire. These flame retardants, required in foam and other fillings for furniture, and particularly for juvenile bedding and related items, break down and are breathed in over time, with measurable ill effects for health. See http://www.greensciencepolicy.org for more information.
Hill Gates
Apr 28th, 2010
Doing research on women in rural China has shown me how important this is; doing my own housework has been made slightly more safe, I think, by using robotic vacuuming. I love my Roomba.
Jonathan Latterner
Apr 30th, 2010
I was most surprised by how much time was spent indoors by both sexes, but I guess that translates over to about 1 hour a day outside, which makes sense for a lot of people. This article is great motivation to do my homework out in the sun rather than in the stuffy library
Good by dirty carpet… hello clean dirt?
Pramod Karulkar
May 3rd, 2010
This work sheds light on a new facet of a well-known problem. The woman in your photograph probably gets a lot of fresh air when not cooking because of her lifestyle and “openness” of her dwelling. Closed, tightly insulated modern homes and lack of fresh air make indoor pollution worse. It is a very serious issue for those who live in cold climate. There is a tradeoff between the cost of keeping a house at a comfortable temperature and the supply of cold fresh air. Many studies have been published on this topic. Grassroots awareness and implementing solutions along with regulatory changes will go a long way to reduce indoor pollution and the problems that it creates.
Michelle
May 7th, 2010
“More young children die from respiratory illness there than from diarrheal diseases,” she says. “But parents do not associate these deaths with smoke exposure, even though the mothers keep their youngest children close by while they cook.” Sure does bring you back to reality when you get done reading this…sure is sad to here these kids going through this and there parents have no idea & no resources to do anything about it. I was also notice how much time was spend by both male and females inside. Very interesting article. Thanks.
misha
Jan 4th, 2011
Good article, but it misses the main indoor air problem: cigarette smoke. Even if a nonsmoker keeps windows closed and uses an air cleaner, smoke that migrates from smokers’ apartments to nonsmokers’ apartments is a serious problem (it comes not only through windows, but also up interior walls). It sets on fabrics and becomes thirdhand smoke that gets reactivated by cleaning behaviors. Sadly, because cigarettes are a significant source of income for powerful companies, it doesn’t matter how deadly smoke is, smokers will always be given the right to pollute the air for others. If someone bought a chemistry set and produced toxic fumes that migrated to the homes of others, they would be liable for the fumes. If someone burned leaves in an open can, they would be responsible for the fumes. Cigarette smokers are given a special privilege to pollute the indoor air of others and then play the “get out jail free” card. Cigarette smoke damages the lungs of others twice, once as secondhand smoke and again as thirdhand smoke (the latter disproportionately affecting those who clean, mainly women.