82 percent of U.S. homes were found to have mouse allergens. The findings by Cohn et al. appear in the June 2004 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The survey was conducted using established sampling techniques to ensure that the surveyed homes were representative of U.S. homes. The homes were sampled from seventy-five randomly selected areas (generally counties or groups of counties) across the entire country. The 831 homes included all regions of the country (northeast, southeast, midwest, southwest, northwest), all housing types, and all settings (urban, suburban, rural).
The selection of homes was controlled to be a representative sample of U.S. homes. For statistics derived from the 831 homes, the contribution from each home was weighted as necessary to ensure that the statistics are representative of the U.S. population.
Dust samples used in the study were collected from kitchen and living room floors, upholstered furniture, beds, and bedroom floors. Kitchen floor concentrations exceed 1.6 micrograms of allergens per gram of dust in about one in five homes (22 percent). The amount of these allergy-triggering particles on the kitchen floor is high enough to be associated with allergies and asthma. Residents of high-rise apartments and mobile homes are at greatest risk, but the allergen is also present in all types of homes.
The NIEHS study, with collaborators at Constella Group, Inc. and the Harvard School of Public Health, character
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Contact: John Schelp
schelp@niehs.nih.gov
919-541-5723
NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
8-Jun-2004