March 9, 2020
Soundbites & B-roll: Marissa Baker on workplace disease exposure
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A University of Washington researcher calculates that 14.4 million workers face exposure to infection once a week and 26.7 million at least once a month in the workplace, pointing to an important population needing protection as the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, continues to break out across the U.S.
Marissa Baker, an assistant professor in the UW School of Public Health, based her calculations on research she published in 2018 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. In that paper, Baker and co-authors calculated that about 8% of workers in Federal Region X — comprised of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho — work in jobs where exposure to infection or disease occurs at least once a week at work. Those risks include flu-like illnesses, MRSA and other respiratory illnesses, like COVID-19, as well as wound infections.
Using federal employment data, and the same analysis method, Baker and her co-authors determined:
- 10% (14,425,070) of U.S. workers are employed in occupations where exposure to disease or infection happens at least weekly, based on employee and employer self-report.
- 18.4% (26,669,810) of U.S. workers are employed in occupations where exposure to disease or infection happens at least monthly, based on employee and employer self-report.
Tag(s): COVID-19 • Marissa Baker
