CRI's Carpet, Allergy, Asthma Portal For Healthcare Providers

Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) Offers Two New Web Portals: Resources Offer Insight into Carpet in Schools and Carpet, Allergy, and Asthma

Portal Number One: A New Tool for Healthcare Providers and Carpet, Allergy and Asthma

CRI has created a pair of simple-to-use web portals designed to offer information about carpet to two vital audiences: school designers and administrators and the healthcare community.

The first specialized web site provides doctors and other health care providers science-based information on the purported link between carpet use and an increase in asthma and allergy symptoms. Located at http://www.carpet-rug.org/health/, the portal welcomes visitors with this paragraph:

Carpet acts like a trap, keeping dust and allergens out of the air we breathe. Simply put, what falls to the carpet (dust, pet dander and many other particulates that we breathe in) tends to stay trapped in the carpet until it is removed through vacuuming or extraction cleaning. Unlike smooth floor surfaces that allow dust and other allergens to re-circulate into the breathing zone, properly maintained carpet actually contributes to improved air quality.

Additional resources are listed along the left-hand side of the web page, including links to CRI’s so-called “Swedish chart” that shows how asthma rates increased in Sweden at the same time the country drastically reduced carpet use, and Dr. Mitch Sauerhoff’s international literature review article, Carpet, Allergy, and Asthma – Myth or Reality? That concludes that carpet does not cause or aggravate asthma or allergies.

There’s more information about carpet in schools, and a powerful statement from a joint study from 1993 titled "Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention". Published collaboratively by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the World Health Organization, the 2007 update to the original report states that there is no evidence that replacing carpet with hard surface flooring has a health benefit.

All this information has always been available on the CRI web site, but the new portals pull disparate resources together for increased visibility and greater impact.

Next, a new CRI web portal for school designer and administrators…

~Bethany

Note: click this link for the brochure pictured above, titled "Clearing The Air About Clean Carpet."

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