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Evaluation of workplace infection prevention and control measures for COVID-19: A prospective cohort study in Japan
Kazushirou Kurogi1, Kazunori Ikegami1, Hajime Ando1
1Department of Work Systems and Health, Institute of Industrial Ecological Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, 1-1, Iseigaoka, Yahatanishi-ku Kitakyushu-shi, Fukuoka, 807-8555, Japan.
Background:
Encouraging the implementation of infection prevention and control (IPC) measures has been necessary to prevent workplace infections caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the effectiveness of these measures in reducing infections has not been thoroughly evaluated. We evaluated employees' COVID-19 infection rates in relation to the implementation of IPC measures at their workplaces to identify effective workplace measures.
Methods:
This prospective cohort study was conducted between December 2020 and December 2021 using Internet-based self-assessment questionnaires, with 11,982 participants included from the baseline. To estimate whether implementing workplace IPC measures was associated with COVID-19 incidence rates among participants, we estimated multivariate-adjusted relative risk (RR) using a log-binomial model.
Results:
After adjusting for sex, age, education, household members, occupation-related factors, and personal preventive behaviors, requesting ill employees to refrain from going to work showed significantly lower COVID-19 infection rates than not requesting it (RR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.34-0.91, p = 0.019).
Conclusions:
Employees restricted from reporting to work when ill had significantly lower COVID-19 infection rates than those who did not follow this measure. The results indicated that not coming to work when ill was effective in reducing COVID-19 infections at the workplace. We suggest that companies proactively adopt this policy and encourage their employees to comply with it.
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