Dust may seem like a harmless nuisance—but experts say those tiny particles that are floating in the air or accumulating in clumps under your couch or on your windowsill may actually cause more harm than you think.
“Most people think dust is gross but I don’t think people associate dust with the potential health harms it may contain,” says Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. “It might not be people’s number one cleaning priority.”
But it should be high on the list of priorities because dust isn’t just dirt. It contains a blend of various substances, including dead skin cells, hair fragments, pet dander, clothing and furniture fibers, dust mites, mold and fungi spores, microplastic particles, as well as allergens (such as pollen), bacteria, and soil particles that come in from outside.
Furthermore, scientists are increasingly recognizing that dust also contains potentially and harmful chemicals that aren’t visible to the naked eye.
Researchers have identified 45 potentially harmful chemicals in indoor dust, with phthalates, phenols, and flame retardants at the highest levels. Another study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology identified 258 chemicals in household dust samples. Chemicals in household dust include pesticides, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, a.k.a. “forever chemicals”), lead, and other volatile organic compounds.
(Forever chemicals are also hiding in your kitchen. Here’s where.)
In fact, a study in a December 2024 issue of the journal Environment International found that exposure to PFAS in house dust may contribute up to 25 percent of total exposure for adults. And a study in a February 2025 issue of the International Journal of Cancer examined chemical exposure from dust among children ages seven and younger: The researchers found that kids who were exposed to a mixture of eight PFAS from collected household dust samples were 60 percent more likely to develop leukemia than kids with less PFAS exposure.
How the chemicals in dust harm your health
Many of the chemicals that scientists have found in dust are endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), meaning they hijack, mimic or interfere with hormones in the body’s endocrine system in ways that can have serious health repercussions.
These chemicals, along with other particles present in the environment, adhere to indoor dust. “Dust is an incredible reservoir for chemicals in the home—chemicals that can stay there for years,” says Robin Dodson, an exposure scientist at Silent Spring Institute, based in Newton, Massachusetts.
And because these chemicals end up in the dust in the air, on the floor and on other surfaces in our homes, they end up inside our bodies when we inhale them, ingest them, or absorb them through our skin.
(Microplastics are also in our bodies. How much do they harm us?)
“Most of the dust you breathe in goes into the back of the throat and into the stomach where it’s digested,” says Gabriel Filippelli, a professor and executive director of the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute in Indianapolis.
In the short term, exposure to these chemicals can lead to respiratory irritation and flareups of allergies or asthma, research has found. Over the long haul, exposure to some of these EDCs has been linked with an increased risk of certain reproductive problems (such as endometriosis in women and reduced semen quality in men), various forms of cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes, thyroid problems, liver and kidney disease, and neurologic and developmental disorders such as attention deficit disorder.
The exact mechanisms behind these health effects vary, but they do have a few things in in common: Depending on the timing and dose of exposure, EDCs can interfere with the body’s endocrine system in ways that can affect how cells and organs develop or function, explains Shanna Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist and a professor of environmental medicine and climate science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. These changes can in turn raise the risk of developing health problems and developmental disorders.
Who is most at risk from dust?
The threshold for how much exposure to these chemicals in dust is too much may depend on people’s underlying health status and personal susceptibility, experts say.