Occupational irritant contact dermatitis in the food industry will be playing an important role in the next decades and will be challenging people involved in prevention, diagnostics and therapy. To interfere successfully with the natural course of the disease, knowledge about prevalence, causes and risk factors is crucial. Recent studies in the food industry revealed that irritant contact dermatitis was common in the first months of vocational training. After 6 months of training 29.1% of the apprentices had developed hand dermatitis. 50% of the individuals with skin atopy and 30% of individuals without a history of skin atopy were affected. At the end of the training 27.5% had hand dermatitis. The cumulative prevalence of hand dermatitis was 41.3%. Skin protection habits of the apprentices were insufficient. Endogenous and exogenous risk factors were responsible for the development of hand dermatitis. Atopic skin diathesis, previous or present hand dermatitis and flexural dermatitis were the most important endogenous risk factors. Sex, respiratory atopy, metal allergy were of no importance. Occupational wet work in general, the combination of specific wet work tasks as well as house building and refurbishing in leisure time were important exogenous risk factors. Basal TEWL values were of no use for the prediction of occupational hand dermatitis.
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