The Role of Home Environments in Allergic Disease

AbstractAllergic diseases are surprisingly common, chronic health conditions. The primary location where the vast majority of people are exposed to allergens and other substances is in their home. This means it is important to understand home environments and how a home ’s systems function and interact—and that how we occupy these spaces plays a crucial role in both environmental exposure and management of allergic disease. This review provides an overview of what is understood about home environmental exposure and its impact on our health, and proposes a syste matic process for using a patient’s environmental history to develop individualized, manageable and cost-effective recommendations. Once occupant-related information has been gathered, a home environmental exposure assessment should be performed focused on identifying the relationships between any identified sources of contaminants and the housing systems, and conditions that may be contributing to exposure. The results and recommendations from this assessment can then be used to guide exposure-reduction efforts by patients and/or their caregivers in an effort to improve disease management. In this review, we’ll discuss three different types of home interventions—active, which must be routinely performed by the patient and/or caregiver, passive, which are interventions that work without routine, direct interaction from the homeowner, and behavioral changes in how the home environme nt is cleaned and maintaine...
Source: Clinical Reviews in Allergy and Immunology - Category: Allergy & Immunology Source Type: research