Who's In and Who's Out under Workplace COVID Symptom Screening?

Krista Ruffini, Aaron Sojourner and Abigail Wozniak

No 27792, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: COVID symptom screening, a new workplace practice, is likely to affect many millions of American workers in the coming months. Eleven states already require and federal guidance recommends frequent screening of employees for infection symptoms. This paper provides some of the first empirical work exploring the tradeoffs employers face in using daily symptom screening. First, we find that common symptom checkers will likely screen out up to 7 percent of workers each day, depending on the measure used. Second, we find that the measures used will matter for three reasons: many respondents report any given symptom, survey design affects responses, and demographic groups report symptoms at different rates, even absent fluctuations in likely COVID exposure. This last pattern can potentially lead to disparate impacts, and is important from an equity standpoint.

JEL-codes: I1 J5 J7 K3 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ore
Note: EH LS LE
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Published as Krista Ruffini & Aaron Sojourner & Abigail Wozniak, 2021. "Who'S In And Who'S Out Under Workplace Covid Symptom Screening?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 614-641, March.

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Related works:
Journal Article: WHO'S IN AND WHO'S OUT UNDER WORKPLACE COVID SYMPTOM SCREENING? (2021)
Working Paper: Who’s In and Who’s Out under Workplace COVID Symptom Screening? (2020)
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