COVID-19 Clusters and Outbreaks Among Non–Health Care, Noncongregate Workers in Chicago, Illinois

Lendacki, Frances; Forst, Linda; Weber, Emma; Mehta, Supriya D.; Kerins, Janna L.

doi:10.1097/jom.0000000000002782

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Survey respondents are thus described as non-health care, non-congregate workplaces (NHNCW) for the remainder of this report. NHNCW were categorized into 13 industry sectors for sampling, consistent with those used to summarize Chicago’s workplace COVID-19 surveillance data [ 15 ]. These included four early vaccine eligibility (“1b”) (Food Production & Processing, Manufacturing, Warehousing & Distribution, Grocery) and nine others (Bars & Restaurants, Construction, Retail, Hotel, Office Settings, Personal Care & Service, Janitorial, Transportation and Other) [ 7 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 vaccination requirements, encouragement and hesitancy among non-health care, non-congregate workers in Chicago: results from the WEVax survey

et al. 2023

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Background While frontline and essential workers were prioritized for COVID-19 vaccination in the United States, coverage rates and encouragement strategies among non-health care workers have not been well-described. The Chicago Department of Public Health surveyed non-health care businesses to fill these knowledge gaps and identify potential mechanisms for improving vaccine uptake. Methods The Workplace Encouragement for COVID-19 Vaccination in Chicago survey (WEVax Chicago) was administered using REDCap from July 11 to September 12, 2022, to businesses previously contacted for COVID-19 surveillance and vaccine-related outreach. Stratified random sampling by industry was used to select businesses for phone follow-up; zip codes with low COVID-19 vaccine coverage were oversampled. Business and workforce characteristics including employee vaccination rates were reported. Frequencies of requirement, verification, and eight other strategies to encourage employee vaccination were assessed, along with barriers to uptake. Fisher’s exact test compared business characteristics, and Kruskal–Wallis test compared numbers of encouragement strategies reported among businesses with high (> 75%) vs. lower or missing vaccination rates. Results Forty-nine businesses completed the survey, with 86% having 500 or fewer employees and 35% in frontline essential industries. More than half (59%) reported high COVID-19 vaccination rates among full-time employees; most (75%) workplaces reporting lower coverage were manufacturing businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Verifying vaccination was more common than requiring vaccination (51% vs. 28%). The most frequently reported encouragement strategies aimed to improve convenience of vaccination (e.g., offering leave to be vaccinated (67%) or to recover from side effects (71%)), while most barriers to uptake were related to vaccine confidence (concerns of safety, side effects, and other skepticism). More high-coverage workplaces reported requiring (p = 0.03) or verifying vaccination (p = 0.07), though the mean and median numbers of strategies used were slightly greater among lower-coverage versus higher-coverage businesses. Conclusions Many WEVax respondents reported high COVID-19 vaccine coverage among employees. Vaccine requirement, verification and addressing vaccine mistrust may have more potential to improve coverage among working-age Chicagoans than increasing convenience of vaccination. Vaccine promotion strategies among non-health care workers should target low-coverage businesses and assess motivators in addition to barriers among workers and businesses.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 vaccination requirements, encouragement and hesitancy among non-health care, non-congregate workers in Chicago: results from the WEVax survey

et al. 2023

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“…Large outbreaks in meat-packing plants, nursing homes, and prisons made it evident early in the pandemic that certain work settings imposed an elevated risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure. [18][19][20][21] Additional evidence, established through outbreak investigations and epidemiologic studies, have further demonstrated the role of work in generating disparities in COVID-19 illness, morbidity, and mortality by industry and occupation [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] above and beyond socio-environmental factors. 33,34 Second, the specific source of a person's COVID-19 illness is often difficult if not impossible to identify.…”

Section: Rationale For a Covid-19 Presumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why presumptions are important in occupational health: The example of COVID‐19 infection as an occupational disease

Laskaris,

Markowitz

2023

American J Industrial Med

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Workers who become ill or injured on the job while undertaking extraordinary risks on behalf of the public are, at times, granted facilitated access to workers' compensation (WC) benefits through the application of presumptions in the compensation process. Since the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, a broad range of occupational groups faced an elevated risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) exposure at work to perform vital services to maintain our food supply, sustain needed transportation, provide health care, assure energy supply and others. Some states or jurisdictions in the United States recognized both the risk and the service of these workers by enacting COVID‐19 presumption laws to streamline selected essential workers' eligibility for WC benefits. Other states did not. Results of these contrasting public approaches permit an examination of the impact of presumptions in compensation by examining the frequency and outcomes of COVID‐19 claims in “COVID‐19 presumption” and “nonpresumption” states. Despite state‐level variations in economic response to the pandemic, industry mix, and presumption eligibility criteria, the use of COVID‐19 presumptions appears to have substantially increased claim filing rates and improved access to benefits. Lastly, the additional costs of COVID‐19 claims to employers and insurers were lower than initially predicted. In response to future airborne infectious disease outbreaks, workers' compensation presumption laws should be universally implemented to permit a broad range of high‐risk workers to work on the public's behalf without fear of losing wages and incurring medical expenses associated with a work‐related viral exposure.

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COVID-19 Clusters and Outbreaks Among Non–Health Care, Noncongregate Workers in Chicago, Illinois

Cited by 2 publications

References 21 publications

COVID-19 vaccination requirements, encouragement and hesitancy among non-health care, non-congregate workers in Chicago: results from the WEVax survey

COVID-19 vaccination requirements, encouragement and hesitancy among non-health care, non-congregate workers in Chicago: results from the WEVax survey

Why presumptions are important in occupational health: The example of COVID‐19 infection as an occupational disease

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