BackgroundThe coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and control measures adopted have had a disproportionate impact on workers, with migrants being a group specifically affected but poorly studied. This scoping review aims to describe the evidence published on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical and mental health of migrant workers.MethodsPapers written in English covering physical and mental health among international migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, retrieved from six electronic databases searched on July 31, 2021, were included. A total of 1,096 references were extracted, of which 26 studies were finally included.ResultsMost of the migrant populations studied were born in Asia (16 of 26) and Latin America (8 of 26) and were essential workers (15 of 26). Few studies described the length of stay in the host country (9 of 26), the legal status of the migrant population (6 of 26), or established comparison groups (7 of 26). Ten studies described COVID-19 outbreaks with high infection rates. Fourteen studies evaluated mental health (anxiety, depression, worries, fears, stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder). Three of the 26 studies presented collateral positive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic because of improved hygiene.ConclusionThere is a limited number of original publications related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical and mental health of migrant workers around the world. These publications mainly focus on migrants born in Asia and Latin America. The physical, long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has, so far, not been evaluated. The positive collateral effects of improving healthcare conditions for migrant workers should also be further investigated.
Participatory ergonomics is an intervention strategy acting on physical load exposures occurring in occupational settings, scarcely known in Spain but with a number of experiences and evidences coming from other countries. There are several reasons justifying the interest of this approach. First, participatory ergonomics focuses on one of the categories of occupational exposures with the largest impact on workers' health in a majority of countries all over the world, in terms of incidence, prevalence and disability. Secondly, basic principle in participatory ergonomics is empowerment of workers for them to participate identifying risks and injuries caused by physical exposures at work as well as proposing and evaluating proper control measures for each situation. Thirdly, it allows dealing and solving a number of problems without the use of complex technical protocols. From a public health perspective, participatory ergonomics is a largely tried model of community empowerment for the control of (occupational) factors affecting health and wellbeing. In this paper we revise some basic principles of participatory ergonomics, we comment on the keys leading to success or failing of the interventions and we present some main results coming from participatory ergonomics experiences developed for a long time in countries such as Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands or Finland.
Background and Aims: Free treatments for HCV infection with directacting antivirals became widespread in Spain in April 2015. We aimed to test whether, after this intervention, there was a more favorable change in population mortality from HCV-related than from non-HCV-related causes. Approach and Results: Postintervention changes in mortality were assessed using uncontrolled before-after and single-group interrupted time series designs. All residents in Spain during 2001-2018 were included. Various underlying death causes were analyzed: HCV infection; other HCV-related outcomes (HCC, liver cirrhosis, and HIV disease); and non-C hepatitis, other liver diseases, and nonhepatic causes as control outcomes. Changes in mortality after the intervention were first assessed by rate ratios (RRs) between the postintervention and preintervention age-standardized mortality rates.Subsequently, using quasi-Poisson segmented regression models, we estimated the annual percent change (APC) in mortality rate in the postintervention and preintervention periods. All mortality rates were lower during the postintervention period, although RRs were much lower for HCV (0.53; 95% CI, 0.51-0.56) and HIV disease than other causes. After the intervention, there was a great acceleration of the downward mortality trend from HCV, whose APC went from −3.2% (95% CI, −3.6% to −2.8%) to −18.4% (95% CI, −20.6% to −16.3%). There were also significant accelerations in the downward trends in mortality from HCC and HIV disease, while they remained unchanged for cirrhosis and slowed or reversed for other causes.Conclusions: These results suggest that the favorable changes in HCVrelated mortality observed for Spain after April 2015 are attributable to scaling up free treatment with direct-acting antivirals and reinforce that HCV eradication is on the horizon.
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