A COVID-19 Risk Assessment for the US Labor Force

Sammantha Maher; Alexandra E Hill; Peter Britton; Eli P Fenichel; Peter Daszak; Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio; Jude Bayham

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.13.20063776 doi: medRxiv preprint Spatial variation across the United States is remarkable. The percentage of the workforce with any risk factor across all industries ranges from 71% to 93%. After removing obesity from the risk factor criteria, the proportion of the population categorized as at risk declines (56%), but the spatial dispersion grows, ranging from 37% to 75%. The highest risk is concentrated in the Midwest and the lowest in the Intermountain West and West Coast. As little as 5% of the 5 workforce over age 60 in some counties (e.g. Lander County, NV) has a risk factor, while in others, the percentage over age 60 and at-risk is over 40% (Martin County, IN) . Notable disparities exist within regions, states, and between neighboring counties. For example, Greene County, Ohio's workforce over 60 is twice as at risk than the workforce of bordering counties. This trend is found in clusters of both rural and urban counties, including those centered in 10 Marion, IN; Pulaski, MO; and Geary, KA. Somewhat counter-intuitively, there is no significant difference in the overall proportion of the total workforce at risk between rural and urban counties. However, outlier counties with extremely high or low proportions of at-risk workers are more likely to be rural and less populated. The proportion of the workforce at risk only ranged from 46% to 66% across urban counties, while the range across rural counties was from 15 37% to 75%. This is perhaps due to the small number of total workers and the low diversity of industries in rural counties relative to urban regions, or disparities in income between urban and rural locales.