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• Posted August 31, 2026

Live Near A Dry Cleaner? You Might Have A Higher Risk For This Devastating Neurological Condition

People living near dry cleaners might have a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease, a new study says.

People living within approximately 500 feet of a dry cleaner had a 14% greater risk of Parkinson’s compared to those living four to five miles away, researchers report in the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease.

Results also showed that risk of the degenerative disease declined the farther away a person lived from a dry cleaner.

“This study adds to growing evidence that environmental exposures may play an important role in Parkinson’s disease,” said senior researcher Dr. Brad Racette, chairman of neurology and senior vice president of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

“Identifying those exposures is an important step toward understanding how we might reduce the burden of this disease in the future,” Racette said in a news release.

Prior research has linked long-term exposure to chlorinated solvents like trichlorethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) with Parkinson’s disease, researchers said in background notes.

For decades, those chemicals were used by dry cleaners to dissolve grease and stains from clothing without water, researchers said. TCE was largely phased out of the dry-cleaning industry decades ago, but many facilities switched to PCE, which can break down into TCE underground.

As a result, both TCE and PCE can contaminate soil and water for years, even after a dry cleaner has closed, researchers said.

For the study, researchers analyzed the health records of nearly 181,000 people with Parkinson’s disease against those of nearly 19 million healthy people. All of the people were 67 or older, and were covered by Medicare between 2016 and 2018.

The strongest link between proximity to a dry cleaner and Parkinson’s came among patients who had walking and balance problems, falls and cognitive impairment, researchers said.

For example, people living within 0.1 of a mile of a dry cleaner were 23% more likely to have walking and balance problems, compared to people living four to five miles away.

That suggests that different chemical or toxic exposures not only increase the risk of Parkinson’s but might influence the symptoms a person develops, researchers said.

There also are places in the U.S. where the link between dry cleaners and Parkinson’s is stronger, including Dallas, southeastern Illinois and the Tennessee-Kentucky border, researchers said.

These differences might be influenced by a history of contamination, quirks of local geology or aging infrastructure, researchers said.

However, researchers noted that this study cannot establish a direct cause-and-effect link between dry cleaning solvents and Parkinson’s.

Further, the study was published as an unedited manuscript to provide early access to the results. The final version will be published following further editorial and peer review.

More information

The National Institutes of Health has more on Parkinson’s disease.

SOURCES: Dignity Health Arizona, news release, Aug. 19, 2026; npj Parkinson's Disease, Aug. 19, 2026