Background: Asthma is now the most frequent occupational lung disorder in Europe and North America. The condition is under-recognised, underestimated and poorly managed in Norway as well as internationally.
Material and method: The paper is based on the author's work on occupational asthma over some years and on a search (restricted to authors with a Norwegian address) in PubMed and EMBASE in May 2007.
Results: In Norway, occupational asthma is most frequently reported for bakers, spray painters, welders, sheet metal workers, hairdressers, farmers, nurses, cleaners and workers in the aluminium industry, i.e. occupations exposed to mixtures of dust, fume, gas and vapour. Up to 70 % of asthmatics have symptoms at work that improve on absence from work. The Labour Inspection Authority was only informed about such disease for 15 % of asthmatics.
Interpretation: People with allergic occupational asthma must be relocated to prevent the disease from becoming chronic. With non-allergic asthma one can try to adapt the work environment and follow up closely. The substantial underreporting of occupational asthma is probably caused by doctors having too little knowledge of occupational medicine.