Take-home Exposure

Take-home exposure refers to asbestos fibers brought into the home on a worker's clothing, hair, skin, shoes, tools, or vehicle, where family members then inhale them. It is also called secondary, domestic, household, or para-occupational exposure. People exposed this way, most often spouses who laundered work clothes and children who hugged a returning parent, can develop the same asbestos diseases as the worker, including mesothelioma.

Origin

The concept emerged in the medical literature in the 1960s, most notably in a 1965 study by Muriel Newhouse and Hilda Thompson at the London Hospital, which documented mesothelioma in household contacts of asbestos workers near a factory in East London. Internal industry documents from earlier decades show manufacturers were aware that dust traveled home on clothing long before they warned workers or families.

Significance in Asbestos Context

For patients who never worked directly with asbestos, take-home exposure is often the central pathway that explains their disease, and it is a recognized cause of mesothelioma in the medical and epidemiological literature. Proving it usually depends on reconstructing a household member's job: what products they worked with, whether they came home in dusty clothes, who shook out or laundered those clothes, and how often. Defendants frequently challenge these cases by arguing the dose was too low to matter or that the company owed no duty to non-employees, but courts in many jurisdictions have recognized this duty, especially where the hazard of fibers on clothing was known to the employer or product manufacturer. The strength of a take-home claim often turns on industry knowledge: what the company knew, and when, about fibers leaving the workplace on workers' bodies and clothing.

Example Sentence

Her mesothelioma was traced to take-home exposure during the 1970s, when she shook out and washed her father's dust-covered coveralls after his shifts at the shipyard.

Related Terms

Bystander Exposure, Occupational Exposure, Cumulative Dose, Duty to Warn, Household Contact Study

Notes

• Write down a detailed history of every household member's job during your childhood or marriage: employer names, job titles, dates, specific products handled, and whether they came home in work clothes.
• Ask older relatives who did the laundry, whether work clothes were washed separately, and whether dust was visible on clothing, in the car, or in the laundry area. These recollections are powerful evidence.
• Preserve photographs showing a family member in work clothes at home, union records, pay stubs, W-2s, and any product names mentioned in family stories; your legal team can use these to identify specific asbestos-containing products.
• Tell your treating physicians about household asbestos exposure so it is documented in your medical records; this matters both for clinical assessment and for any future claim.
• Take-home cases have specific legal nuances by state, including whether companies owed a duty to family members. Ask your attorney early which states' laws may apply based on where the worker was employed and where you lived.