Introduction

Children with atopic dermatitis (AD) often struggle at school (Saval et al., 1993), and adults with AD do their best to keep their job (Lammintausta & Kalimo, 1993). Looking at AD as a disease with many predisposing, precipitating and perpetuating factors (Williams, 1997) it is obvious that occupational factors can precipitate and perpetuate. While it is unlikely that occupational factors are predisposing (although a role of occupational factors operating on the fetus in utero cannot be ruled out), there is a vast body of literature pointing towards certain jobs causing more skin trouble for people with AD. A preliminary reading of this literature generates a few questions, which one would like to have answered before one is convinced that there is really a problematic association between AD and occupation. One question, for example, is whether the patients with whom the publication deal really have AD. In other words, was AD correctly assessed, without observer bias? Another question is how the patients came to be in their present jobs? In other words, to what extent may AD have influenced the fact that patients selected or avoided a particular occupation? One would also like to know more about those with AD who do not seem to have a (skin) problem within their occupation; maybe they use adequate protection measures at work or avoid domestic exposure, or maybe they have a milder or different type of AD.