CORONAVIRUS AND OCCUPATIONAL RISK

While the majority of deaths involving Covid-19 have affected people in the 65 and over age groups, there have been a significant number of deaths of people younger than this.

In January the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an analysis of deaths by different occupational groups, among men and women aged 20 to 64 years in England and Wales. This looked at 7,961 deaths involving the coronavirus registered between 9th March and 28th December 2020.

The analysis looks at nine broad occupational groups and then breaks those down into narrower bands within those groups.

So who is most at risk?

Firstly the figures show a statistically significantly higher risk for men than women with a rate of 31.4 deaths per 100,000 men (5,128 deaths) compared with 16.8 deaths per 100,000 women (2,833 deaths).

The broad occupational groups with the highest levels for men were:

> elementary occupations (66.3 deaths per 100,000)

> caring, leisure and other service occupations (64.1 deaths per 100,000)

> process, plant and machine operatives (52.8 deaths per 100,000)

> skilled trades occupations (40.4 deaths per 100,000)

> sales and customer service occupations (40.3 deaths per 100,000)

> administrative and secretarial occupations (39.0 deaths per 100,000)

And for women:

> process, plant and machine operatives (33.7 deaths per 100,000)

> caring, leisure and other service occupations (27.3 deaths per 100,000)

> elementary occupations (21.1 deaths per 100,000)

Within those broad groups there were also some significant differences for example:

In the elementary occupations group those who worked in process plants had the highest rate of death involving COVID-19, with 143.2 deaths per 100,000 males (120 deaths). Elementary process plant workers clean metal goods, machinery and premises, operate printing machines and reprographic equipment, wrap, fill, label and seal containers and perform a variety of other manual tasks.

The next highest rate of death involving COVID-19, with 93.4 deaths per 100,000 males (153 deaths) was in elementary security occupations e.g. security guards (140 deaths; 100.7 deaths per 100,000 males).

For caring, leisure and other service occupations, care workers and home carers had the highest rate of death involving COVID-19 (109.9 deaths per 100,000 males; 47.1 deaths per 100,000 females).

The full report and statistics can be found on the ONS’s website at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/deathsregisteredbetween9marchand28december2020

A certain amount of care does need to be taken when interpreting these figures as differences in observed death rates are not necessarily caused by differences in occupational exposure. There could be a number of other factors involved such as ethnic group, place of residence, underlying health issues or deprivation.

It is important that all employers carry out their activities in such a way as to reduce workplace risk to the lowest reasonably practicable level by taking preventative measures. This includes following guidance for your sector and keeping up to date with relevant national and local regulations.

Please speak to your normal PIB Risk Management contact or get in touch using [email protected]  if you have any questions.