Epidemiology of hospital-based COVID- 19 cluster in a tertiary care cancer hospital, Chennai, India 2020

Impact of COVID-19 on environmental services workers in healthcare settings: a scoping review

“…A further 1357 articles were removed after title and abstract screening and 21 articles were removed after review of full-texts. Finally, 24 articles were included in the scoping review [ [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] , [33] ]. The characteristics and salient findings of the included studies are summarised in Table 1 , Table 2 , Table 3 , grouped broadly as SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity studies, outbreak investigations and studies on mental health.…”

“… Baker, 2021 [ 12 ] United States Cross-sectional study Environmental services workers, n=35 Environmental services workers had a slight increased likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity, though with a wide confidence interval (crude OR 1.6, 95% CI 0.4 to 4.6). Barry, 2021 [ 13 ] Saudi Arabia Retrospective analysis Housekeeping staff, n=146 Housekeeping staff had the highest infection rate (17.1%, 25 out of 146) compared to other healthcare workers. Most infections appeared to have been acquired in the community.…”

“…There were six studies from the United States [ 10 , 12 , 19 , 24 , 25 , 31 ], six studies from India [ 16 , 18 , 20 , 27 , 29 , 32 ], two studies from the United Kingdom [ 17 , 26 ], two from Egypt [ 21 , 30 ], one each from Brazil [ 22 ], Chile [ 28 ], Ethiopia [ 33 ], Iran [ 15 ], Mexico [ 14 ], Qatar [ 11 ], Saudi Arabia [ 13 ] and Turkey [ 23 ].…”

“…The seroprevalence studies, with the exception of a single study from Iran [ 15 ], consistently reported that environmental services workers (housekeeping, cleaners and janitorial staff) were at a significantly elevated risk of having contracted COVID-19 compared to other healthcare workers in the same institution [ [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] ]. The quality of these cross-sectional studies was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklist for analytical cross-sectional study [ 34 ] by consensus among three study investigators (Q.X.N., C.Y.L.Y.…”

“…Although the studies did not control directly for income or education attainments, occupation is a surrogate for socioeconomic status. As COVID-19 could be acquired in both healthcare (albeit less likely [ 13 , 23 ]) as well as community settings, environmental services workers could have poorer knowledge and compliance to PPE use and they tend to gather frequently during mealtimes as highlighted by a number of studies [ 11 , 24 , 30 ], and this group could also live in more crowded housing conditions that might expose them to the virus [ 13 ]. Several international studies have found that COVID-19 further exacerbated income and socioeconomic inequalities [ [35] , [36] , [37] ], and this could have adversely impacted the housing and living conditions of these employees.…”