Estimating the burden of United States workers exposed to infection or disease: A key factor in containing risk of COVID-19 infection

Baker, Marissa G.; Peckham, Trevor; Seixas, Noah S.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0232452

Cited by 365 publications

(353 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The recognition of COVID-19 as a workplace hazard is important for workers in other sectors as well. Many service workers could be impacted by COVID-19 as indicated by Baker et al [6]. Approximately one in five US workers are employed in occupations where exposure to infection occurs at least once a month.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…police officers, firefighters), office and administrative support sectors (e.g. couriers), preschool and day-care teachers, community and social services, service and transportation workers and even construction and extraction may be considered at risk professions [6].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…As well as professions at higher risk due to the nature of work, lack of adaptation of working conditions to the newly emerging situation can put workers from other professions at risk. This may include lack of access to flexible working, lack of access to paid sick leave or inability to provide substitute workers [6]. Another aspect, which is currently overlooked, is the potential role of work and environmental factors in progression of the disease.…”

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confidence: 99%

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COVID-19: a new work-related disease threatening healthcare workers

Godderis

Boone

Bakusic

2020

Occupational Medicine

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COVID-19: a new work-related disease threatening healthcare workers

Godderis

Boone

Bakusic

2020

Occupational Medicine

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“…To specify spillovers and dependence in the disturbances, spatial econometrics often uses a n × n weight matrix W to create spatial lags of variables so that Wv becomes the spatial lag of an n × 1 variable v. This matrix contains positive, fixed elements if observations neighbor each another and zero elements for non-neighboring observations as shown in (16). Also, to prevent neighbors from predicting themselves the diagonal elements of W equal 0 as specified in (17).…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An emerging literature surveyed by [5] and [6] points out that the constant basic reproduction number assumed in compartmental models (the Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered, or SIR models) used in epidemiology to model disease transmission is untenable given that behavioral responses to the fear of infection [7][8][9][10][11][12], underlying health conditions [13,14], and work environment [15][16][17][18] all influence the decision to social distance. Our results show that individual behavioral responses matter, even when jurisdictional restrictions are in place, in affecting the basic reproduction number.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic, jurisdictional, and spatial effects on social distancing in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2020

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Social distancing, a non-pharmaceutical tactic aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19, can arise because individuals voluntarily distance from others to avoid contracting the disease. Alternatively, it can arise because of jurisdictional restrictions imposed by local authorities. We run reduced form models of social distancing as a function of county-level exogenous demographic variables and jurisdictional fixed effects for 49 states to assess the relative contributions of demographic and jurisdictional effects in explaining social distancing behavior. To allow for possible spatial aspects of a contagious disease, we also model the spillovers associated with demographic variables in surrounding counties as well as allow for disturbances that depend upon those in surrounding counties. We run our models weekly and examine the evolution of the estimated coefficients over time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. These estimated coefficients express the revealed preferences of individuals who were able to and chose to stay at home to avoid the disease. Stay-at-home behavior measured using cell phone tracking data exhibits considerable cross-sectional variation, increasing over nine-fold from the end of January 2020 to the end of March 2020, and then decreasing by about 50% through mid-June 2020. Our estimation results show that demographic exogenous variables explain substantially more of this variation than predictions from jurisdictional fixed effects. Moreover, the explanations from demographic exogenous variables and jurisdictional fixed effects show an evolving correlation over the sample period, initially partially offsetting, and eventually reinforcing each other. Furthermore, the predicted social distance from demographic exogenous variables shows substantial spatial autoregressive dependence, indicating clustering in social distancing behavior. The increased variance of stay-at-home behavior coupled with the high level of spatial dependence can result in relatively intense hotspots and coldspots of social distance, which has implications for disease spread and mitigation.

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Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Health Care Personnel, First Responders, and Other Essential Workers During a Prevaccination COVID-19 Surge in Arizona

et al. 2021

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IMPORTANCEUnderstanding the relative risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection across occupations can inform guidance to protect workers and communities. Less is known about infection risk for first responders and other essential workers than for health care personnel. OBJECTIVE To compare the prevaccination incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among first responders and other essential workers with incidence among health care personnel. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This was a prospective cohort study of health care personnel, first responders, and other essential workers in Arizona from July 20, 2020, to March 14, 2021. Participants were seronegative at enrollment, had frequent direct contact with others at work, worked at least 20 hours per week, and submitted weekly nasal swab specimens for real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction analysis. Data analyses were performed from April 19, 2021, to June 4, 2021. EXPOSURES Occupation was the primary exposure of interest. Confounders assessed were sociodemographic characteristics, health status, community exposure, and work exposure. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Crude incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection was defined as the sum of first positive SARS-CoV-2 infections in participants divided by person-weeks at risk. Negative binomial regression was used to model SARS-CoV-2 infection by occupation to estimate unadjusted and adjusted incidence rate ratios (IRRs). The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) method was used to generate a parsimonious multivariable model. RESULTS The study cohort comprised 1766 Arizona workers (mean age [SD], 43.8 [11.1] years; 1093 [61.9%] female; 401 [22.7%] were Hispanic and 1530 [86.6%] were White individuals) of whom44.2% were health care personnel, 22.4% first responders, and 33.4% other essential workers. The cohort was followed up for 23 393 person-weeks. Crude incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection was 6.7, 13.2, and 7.4 per 1000 person-weeks at risk for health care personnel, first responders, and other essential workers, respectively. In unadjusted models, first responders had twice the incidence of infection as health care personnel (IRRs, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.44-2.79). While attenuated, this risk remained elevated in adjusted LASSO-optimized models (IRR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.07-2.38). Risk of infection among other essential workers was no different than for health care personnel in unadjusted or adjusted models. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEThis prospective cohort study found that first responders had a higher incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than health care personnel, even after adjusting for (continued) Key Points Question Before COVID-19 vaccine availability, how comparable were rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection among health care personnel, first responders, and other essential workers? Findings This prospective cohort study of 1766 unvaccinated seronegative Arizona workers using self-administered reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction testing found that first responders had a significantly higher incidence of SARS-CoV-2...

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Estimating the burden of United States workers exposed to infection or disease: A key factor in containing risk of COVID-19 infection

Abstract: Introduction

Cited by 365 publications

References 20 publications

COVID-19: a new work-related disease threatening healthcare workers

COVID-19: a new work-related disease threatening healthcare workers

Demographic, jurisdictional, and spatial effects on social distancing in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic

Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Health Care Personnel, First Responders, and Other Essential Workers During a Prevaccination COVID-19 Surge in Arizona

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