Emergency temporary standards and COVID-19 trends among Oregon farmworkers

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, migrant and seasonal farmworkers were deemed essential due to their central roles in US agricultural operations. However, employer-provided housing and transportation conditions increased their risks of SARS-CoV-2 exposure, and some states implemented emergency temporary standards (ETSs) at the insistence of farmworker advocates. Despite numerous studies examining the effectiveness of policy interventions (e.g., workplace closures) for mitigating SARS-CoV-2 transmission, limited research has specifically examined the effectiveness of interventions aimed at protecting farmworkers from COVID-19.

Methods: We used an interrupted time series analysis to estimate how two ETSs and one executive order issued in Oregon impacted COVID-19 trends from March 1, 2020, to February 27, 2021, for the overall population and among agricultural labor groups in Oregon.

Results: Our models show that the ETS and executive order, which specifically targeted farmworker housing, transportation, and worksites, did not demonstrate any significant effects on the numbers of COVID-19 cases or associated deaths. However, the other ETS, which targeted all workplaces, was associated with statistically significant decreases in COVID-19 cases among the general population (-142.36214, p-value<0.0001), producers (-1.67128, p-value = 0.0009), hired workers (-2.39413, p-value = 0.0014), unpaid workers (-1.01572, p-value = 0.0003), and migrant workers (-0.60017, p-value = 0.0166). None of the three policy changes were found to have any statistically significant impacts on the numbers of COVID-19-associated deaths.

Conclusions: The ETS targeting all workplaces was more effective for reducing COVID-19 transmission than the ETS or executive order specifically targeting farmworkers, indicating that the design, communication, and implementation of ETSs targeting farmworkers should be re-evaluated.

Fig 1. Trends in COVID-19 cases in Oregon, for both the overall population and by agricultural worker type, between March 1, 2020 and February 27, 2021.

Fig 2. Trends in COVID-19 deaths in Oregon, for both the overall population and by agricultural worker type, between March 1, 2020 and February 27, 2021.