NIOSH Stresses the Importance of Collecting COVID-19 Case Job Information

Collecting, coding, analyzing and reporting industry and occupation data from COVID-19 cases is crucial to informing public health strategies to reduce the impact of the pandemic on workers. One NIOSH article gives some examples.

Studying the virus in terms of its prevalence among certain industries and types of workers is important to informing and building policies that will best help the public. One NIOSH article elaborates on its previous blog post, Collecting occupation and industry data in public health surveillance systems for COVID-19.

Having data about industry and occupation helps the public health community identify work-related outbreaks and evaluate risks among various groups of workers. While researchers have had to adjust their methods of data collection as science on the virus has evolved, there is a growing effort by public health officials to focus on COVID case job collection.

See another recent post on the topic titled Making Industry and Occupation Information Useful for Public Health: A guide to coding industry and occupation text fields.

The article from NIOSH highlights two recent examples of how collecting and coding job information for cases can be used to ensure worker safety.

What Washington State Learned: Cases by Occupation and Industry

The Washington State Department of Health worked with the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries Safety & Health Assessment & Research for Prevention Program to study COVID-19 cases among occupation and industry. Here are the key findings:

As of July 23, 2020, there were 26,799 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 among Washington residents.

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NIOSH Stresses the Importance of Collecting COVID-19 Case Job Information - Occupational Health and Safety