Black, Latinx HCWs most likely to have COVID-19
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Support staff and Black and Latinx workers with and without patient care faced the highest risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection in a study of nearly 4,000 hospital employees and clinicians in New Jersey.
“As COVID-19 hit the New York/New Jersey area in spring 2020 and hospitals faced a huge surge of COVID-19 patients, it immediately became clear that there were likely to be great risks to the hospital workers,” Emily S. Barrett, PhD, associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health, told Healio. “Wanting to promote the health and safety of the workforce during these stressful times, we collaborated with Robert Wood Johnson Hospital to offer testing to all of its employees regardless of their role.”
Barrett and colleagues screened 3,904 employees and clinicians at the hospital for SARS-CoV-2 between April 28 and June 30. According to the study, the they assessed positive tests in relation to demographic and occupational characteristics and prior COVID-19 symptoms.
During the study period, 13 participants (0.3%) tested positive for the virus and 374 (9.6%) tested positive for antibodies. According to the study, the odds of a positive test were higher among participants with more than average direct patient contact (adjusted OR = 1.98, 95% CI, 1.35-2.91) compared with participants with less patient care duties (aOR = 1.71, 95% CI, 1.18-2.48).
The study demonstrated that the proportion of participants testing positive was highest for phlebotomists (23.9%), maintenance/housekeeping (17.3%), dining/food services (16.9%) and interpersonal/support roles (13.7%), despite lower levels of direct patient care duties. Barrett and colleagues observed lower positivity rates among doctors (7.2%) and nurses (9.4%) roles they say had fewer underrepresented minorities. According to the study, after adjusting for job role and patient care responsibilities and other factors, Black and Latinx workers had twofold increased odds of a positive test compared with white workers.
“The take-home message is that there may be high rates of infection — including asymptomatic infection — among hospital staff, even among those who do not have direct patient contact,” Barrett said. “While we can’t say whether these infections occurred in the hospital or community setting, it tells us that hospitals should be proactive about regularly testing their workers as COVID-19 begins to surge again across the United States.”
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