Agricultural workers in meatpacking plants presenting to an emergency department with suspected COVID‐19 infection are disproportionately Black and Hispanic

Abstract

Objective Facilities that process and package meat for consumer sale and consumption (meatpacking plants) were early sites of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) outbreaks. The aim of this study was to characterize the association between meatpacking plant exposure and clinical outcomes among emergency department (ED) patients with COVID‐19 symptoms. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study of patients presenting to a single ED, from March 1 to May 31, 2020, who had: 1) symptoms consistent with COVID‐19 and 2) a COVID‐19 test performed. The primary outcome was COVID‐19 positivity, and secondary outcomes included hospital admission from the ED, ventilator use, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, hospital length of stay (LOS; <48 or ≥48 h), and mortality. Results Patients from meatpacking plants were more likely to be Black or Hispanic than the ED patients without this occupational exposure. Patients with a meatpacking plant exposure were more likely to test positive for COVID‐19 (adjusted relative risk [aRR] = 2.37, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.59 to 3.53) but had similar rates of hospital admission (aRR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.82 to 1.07) and hospital LOS (aRR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.45 to 1.23). There was no significant difference in ventilator use among patients with meatpacking and nonmeatpacking plant exposure (8.2% vs. 11.1%, p = 0.531), ICU admissions (4.1% vs. 12.0%, p = 0.094), and mortality (2.0% vs. 4.1%, p = 0.473). Conclusions Workers in meatpacking plants in Iowa had a higher rate of testing positive for COVID‐19 but were not more likely to be hospitalized for their illness. These patients were disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

Transmission and Control of SARS-CoV-2 in the Food Production Sector: A Rapid Narrative Review of the Literature

“…Our search retrieved 26 papers that fit the inclusion criteria for this review (Table 1). The country with most publications was the USA (n = 9) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], while others were based in the UK (n = 6) [16][17][18][19][20][21], France (n = 1) [22], Ireland (n = 1) [23], Spain (n = 1) [24], Germany (n = 1) [25], Greece (n = 1) [26], Sweden (n = 1) [27] or focused on a more global perspective (n = 4) [28][29][30][31]. One study focused on both the USA and the UK [32].…”

“…Evidence on outbreaks and infection and mortality rates within the food production sector in the UK has been limited. Many of the papers which focused on the transmission levels within the food production sector were US-based studies (n= 7) [7][8][9][10][11]13,15]. Of these, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published several papers covering the number of cases in various factories across the USA.…”

“…House et al [11] performed a retrospective cohort study of patients less than 65 years of age attending an emergency department (ED) with COVID-19 symptoms in the USA between March-May 2020. They found that amongst all the patients, 8.4% stated they were potentially exposed by working in a meatpacking plant.…”

“…They also concluded that inhospital mortality did not vary significantly by meatpacking plant exposure. Ethnicity seemed to play a significant role, with figures showing that 57.1% of individuals with a meatpacking exposure were Hispanic/Latino, but only made up 11.8% of the non-meat packing exposure group [11].…”

The Abysmal Organization of Work and Work Safety Culture Experienced by North Carolina Latinx Women in Farmworker Families

“…They are migrant and seasonal farmworkers and chicken catchers in agriculture [2][3][4], line operatives in chicken and meat processing plants [5,6], forestry workers [7,8], fishers [4], landscape and lawn maintenance workers [9,10], residential construction workers [11,12], and hotel and restaurant workers [13][14][15]. Many of these workers are considered essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, with media [16,17] and academic [18][19][20] publications documenting their excessive exposure, morbidity, and mortality compared to the larger US population.…”