Are Daycare Workers at a Higher Risk of Parvovirus B19 Infection? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Karla Romero Starke, Marlen Kofahl, Alice Freiberg, Melanie Schubert, Mascha Luisa Groß, Stefanie Schmauder, Janice Hegewald, Daniel Kämpf, Johanna Stranzinger, Albert Nienhaus and Andreas Seidler
Additional contact information
Karla Romero Starke: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Marlen Kofahl: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Alice Freiberg: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Melanie Schubert: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Mascha Luisa Groß: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Stefanie Schmauder: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Janice Hegewald: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Daniel Kämpf: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Johanna Stranzinger: Section Occupational Health, Basic Principles of Prevention and Rehabilitation, Institution for Statutory Social Accident Insurance and Prevention in the Health Care and Welfare Services (BGW), 22089 Hamburg, Germany
Albert Nienhaus: Section Occupational Health, Basic Principles of Prevention and Rehabilitation, Institution for Statutory Social Accident Insurance and Prevention in the Health Care and Welfare Services (BGW), 22089 Hamburg, Germany
Andreas Seidler: Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine (IPAS), Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: Objective: In this systematic review, we aimed to summarize the evidence on the association between being a daycare educator working with children and the possible increased risk of parvovirus B19 infection compared to the general population. Methods: The Medline and Embase databases were searched using a defined search to find studies published since 2000. Two reviewers evaluated the search hits using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The resulting studies were extracted and were assessed in eight domains of bias. A pooled relative risk (RR) of parvovirus infection for daycare workers compared to the general population was calculated. Results: After evaluating the 7781 search hits and manual search, four methodologically-adequate studies were identified: three cross-sectional studies and one retrospective cohort study. Of the three studies investigating the risk of infection, one evaluated parvovirus B19 seroconversion rates for daycare workers. There was an indication for an increased risk for daycare workers compared to the unexposed population (RR = 1.12, 95% CI 0.98–1.27) using prevalence estimators. Furthermore, daycare workers had a higher seroconversion rate compared to the unexposed population (RR = 2.63, 95% CI 1.27–5.45) in the low risk of bias study. Conclusions: Our findings suggest a higher risk of parvovirus B19 infection for daycare workers compared to an unexposed comparison population, which necessitate preventative efforts. Considering the underestimation of the occupational seroconversion risk by prevalence-based estimators, parvovirus B19 infections among daycare workers might mostly be occupationally acquired.

Keywords: parvovirus B19; fifth disease; daycare workers; daycare; kindergarten teachers; occupational risk; occupational disease (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1392/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1392/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:8:p:1392-:d:223787

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().