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How risk of exposure to the coronavirus at work varies by race and ethnicity and how to protect the health and well-being of workers and their families
How risk of exposure to the coronavirus at work varies by race and ethnicity and how to protect the health and well-being of workers and their families
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Urban Institute research report
- Author(s):
- Dubay, Lisa, author
Aarons, Joshua, author
Brown, K. Steven, author
Kenney, Genevieve M., author - Contributor(s):
- Urban Institute, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : Urban Institute, December 2020
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- COVID-19 -- prevention & control
COVID-19 -- transmission
Employment
Ethnicity
Race Factors
Return to Work
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Since the beginning of the pandemic, workers in essential industries needing to work in person continued going to work and keeping the nation running while risking exposure to the coronavirus. And as states reopened, many nonessential workers returned to work, risking exposure to the virus to allow people to shop in stores, eat in restaurants, and obtain personal services. States have phased in reopening since late spring, and though the recent surge of cases has prompted some states and localities to revert to earlier reopening phases that placed greater restrictions on businesses and travel, all have kept nonessential industries open to some extent. Moreover, significant community spread of the virus across the country this fall puts both essential and nonessential workers who need to work in person at even higher risk for contracting COVID-19, making it even more urgent that policies and systems be developed to protect and support them. In this paper, we seek to identify those whose work puts them at greatest risk of exposure to the virus. To do so, we first focus on essential workers who must work in person and close to others. These workers are performing critical societal functions Americans cannot live without and that allow other people to limit their exposure to the virus. Because all states are in some phase of reopening, we also examine nonessential workers who cannot work from home, because they, too, risk greater exposure to the virus.3 Because of long-standing structural racism that privileges white workers, we separate our results by race and ethnicity to better understand the potential connection between employment and the higher prevalence of COVID-19 among Black, Native American, and Hispanic/Latinx people in the US and to identify effective policies to protect people most at risk of contracting COVID-19. Finally, we examine the household circumstances of essential and nonessential workers facing exposure to the coronavirus at work. This allows us to assess how the virus may be transmitted to vulnerable household members and what policies are needed to help workers keep their families safe.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (x, 40 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918266201306676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918266201306676