Dataset Information

Employment related COVID-19 exposure risk among disabled people in the UK.

ABSTRACT: We provide new evidence about the work-related exposure of disabled people to COVID-19 using household survey data combined with a novel occupational risk indicator. Despite their higher clinical vulnerability, disabled people in employment in the UK were significantly more likely to be going out to work during the pandemic rather than working from home, and were working in occupations that were more exposed to COVID-19 than the occupations of non-disabled workers. Our results raise questions about whether there are sufficient safeguards for disabled people in the workplace, and have longer-term implications for a labour market where COVID-19 is a persistent health issue.

SUBMITTER: Bryan ML

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8629513 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Employment related COVID-19 exposure risk among disabled people in the UK.

Bryan Mark L ML Bryce Andrew M AM Roberts Jennifer J

SSM - population health 20211129

We provide new evidence about the work-related exposure of disabled people to COVID-19 using household survey data combined with a novel occupational risk indicator. Despite their higher clinical vulnerability, disabled people in employment in the UK were significantly more likely to be going out to work during the pandemic rather than working from home, and were working in occupations that were more exposed to COVID-19 than the occupations of non-disabled workers. Our results raise questions ab ...[more]

PMID: 34869822

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Project description:A major strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is the limiting of in-person contacts. However, limiting contacts is impractical or impossible for the many disabled people who do not live in care facilities but still require caregivers to assist them with activities of daily living. We seek to determine which interventions can best prevent infections of disabled people and their caregivers. To accomplish this, we simulate COVID-19 transmission with a compartmental model that includes susceptible, exposed, asymptomatic, symptomatically ill, hospitalized, and removed/recovered individuals. The networks on which we simulate disease spread incorporate heterogeneity in the risk levels of different types of interactions, time-dependent lockdown and reopening measures, and interaction distributions for four different groups (caregivers, disabled people, essential workers, and the general population). Of these groups, we find that the probability of becoming infected is largest for caregivers and second largest for disabled people. Consistent with this finding, our analysis of network structure illustrates that caregivers have the largest modal eigenvector centrality of the four groups. We find that two interventions-contact-limiting by all groups and mask-wearing by disabled people and caregivers-most reduce the number of infections in disabled and caregiver populations. We also test which group of people spreads COVID-19 most readily by seeding infections in a subset of each group and comparing the total number of infections as the disease spreads. We find that caregivers are the most potent spreaders of COVID-19, particularly to other caregivers and to disabled people. We test where to use limited infection-blocking vaccine doses most effectively and find that (1) vaccinating caregivers better protects disabled people from infection than vaccinating the general population or essential workers and that (2) vaccinating caregivers protects disabled people from infection about as effectively as vaccinating disabled people themselves. Our results highlight the potential effectiveness of mask-wearing, contact-limiting throughout society, and strategic vaccination for limiting the exposure of disabled people and their caregivers to COVID-19.

Project description:BackgroundThe sudden introduction of social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant lifestyle changes for the UK population. People living with physical disabilities were deemed to be at greater risk of complications following COVID-19 infection and were subjected to stricter social distancing guidelines. But gaps remain in our understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions affected the ability to access support, health and wellbeing of people with physical disabilities. Such understanding is vital to ensure equitable future pandemic preparedness for people living with physical disabilities.MethodsWe conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 31 people living in the UK between May 2020 and January 2022. All participants self-identified as having a physical disability that affected their mobility, sight, or hearing. We analysed the data using reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsSix themes were identified that described the impact of the pandemic on ability to access support, health and wellbeing: (i) adaptations to healthcare provision led to difficulties in managing health and wellbeing; (ii) exacerbations of inequalities in access to public space due to social distancing guidelines; (iii) experiences of hostility from able-bodied people; (iv) loss of social lives and encounters; (v) difficulties maintaining distance from others and subsequent fear of infection and (vi) strategies to support wellbeing and coping when confined to the home.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing health and social inequalities experienced by disabled people. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on service provision and social connections resulted in challenging circumstances for disabled people who faced unmet medical needs, deteriorating health, and at times, hostile public spaces. Disabled people's experiences need to be incorporated into future pandemic or health-related emergency planning to ensure equality of access to services and public spaces to ensure their health and wellbeing is supported and maintained.

Dataset Information

Employment related COVID-19 exposure risk among disabled people in the UK.

Publications

Employment related COVID-19 exposure risk among disabled people in the UK.

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