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. 2022 Oct 10;19(19):12951.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph191912951.

Are Healthcare Workers Infected with SARS-CoV-2 at Home or at Work? A Comparative Prevalence Study

Shadi Zahran  1 , Ran Nir-Paz  2   3 , Ora Paltiel  4 , Chen Stein-Zamir  4   5 , Yonatan Oster  2   3
Affiliations

Are Healthcare Workers Infected with SARS-CoV-2 at Home or at Work? A Comparative Prevalence Study

Shadi Zahran et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Prior to the widespread use of vaccinations, healthcare workers (HCWs) faced the double burden of caring for unprecedented numbers of critically ill COVID-19 patients while also facing the risk of becoming infected themselves either in healthcare facilities or at home. In order to assess whether SARS-CoV-2-positivity rates in HCWs reflected or differed from those in their residential areas, we compared the SARS-CoV-2-positivity rates during 2020 among HCWs in Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Centers (HHUMC), a tertiary medical center in Jerusalem, Israel, to those of the general population in Jerusalem, stratified by neighborhood. Additionally, we compared the demographic and professional parameters in every group. Four percent of the adult population (>18 years) in Jerusalem tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during 2020 (24,529/605,426) compared to 7.1% of HHUMC HCWs (317/4470), rate ratio 1.75 (95% CI 1.57-1.95), with wide variability (range 0.38-25.0) among different neighborhoods. Of the 30 neighborhoods with more than 50 infected HCWs, 25 showed a higher positivity rate for HCWs compared to the general population. The higher risk of HCWs compared to residents representing the general population in most neighborhoods in Jerusalem may be explained by their behavior in and out of the hospital.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; healthcare workers; location; neighborhood; occupational risk.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of study population inclusions and exclusions.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Absolute number of SARS-CoV-2-positive tests over 2020 in Jerusalem and Hadassah medical center. Colored lines represent the Jerusalem population, and stacked columns represent the Hadassah hospital group.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of the rate of positive healthcare workers to the rate of positivity in the general public per neighborhood. Rate Ratios and confidence intervals for the 30 largest neighborhoods in Jerusalem in descending order.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Heat map of SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in Hadassah workers in Jerusalem. Circle size corresponds with number of Hadassah workers and color with SARS-CoV-2 prevalence: green < 5%, yellow 5–10%, orange 10–20%, red > 20%.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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