Extending a COVID-19 Job Exposure Matrix: The SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 Job Exposure Matrix Module (SCoVJEM Module) for Population-Based Studies

Ximena P. Vergara (), Kathryn Gibb, David P. Bui, Elisabeth Gebreegziabher, Elon Ullman and Kyle Peerless
Additional contact information
Ximena P. Vergara: Heluna Health, 3300 Crossroads Pkwy. N #450, City of Industry, CA 91746, USA
Kathryn Gibb: California Department of Public Health, Occupational Health Branch, 850 Marina Bay Pkwy. P-3, Richmond, CA 94804, USA
David P. Bui: Heluna Health, 3300 Crossroads Pkwy. N #450, City of Industry, CA 91746, USA
Elisabeth Gebreegziabher: Heluna Health, 3300 Crossroads Pkwy. N #450, City of Industry, CA 91746, USA
Elon Ullman: Heluna Health, 3300 Crossroads Pkwy. N #450, City of Industry, CA 91746, USA
Kyle Peerless: California Department of Public Health, Occupational Health Branch, 850 Marina Bay Pkwy. P-3, Richmond, CA 94804, USA

IJERPH, 2025, vol. 22, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: The risk of workplace SARS-CoV-2 transmission is increased by aerosolization or droplets and increased respiratory rates or increased viral stability in cold environments. Few methods exist for identifying occupational risks of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. We extended a SARS-CoV-2 job exposure matrix (JEM) into four dimensions, talking loudly (Loud) (very loud, loud, somewhat loud, or not), physical activity (PA) (high, medium or low), and cold (Cold) (cold or not) and hot environments (Hot) (hot or not), using data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) and a priori questions for each and noise measurements for 535 occupations. We classified 70%+ occupations as loud or very loud (74.6%); whereas 13.8% were high PA, 18.5% exposed to cold, and 23.7% exposed to hot temperatures. Applying to California 2019 workforce data to explore by race/ethnicity and sex, we found 21.2% worked in very loud and 12.6% in high PA occupations and 15.7% in cold and 17.8% hot environments. Latino workers were highly represented in very loud and high PA levels among farming (83.8 and 78.4%) and construction (58.7% and 50.3%). More males worked in each highest exposure level than females. This JEM provides aerosol transmission proxies for COVID-19 risk factors and merits investigation as a tool for epidemiologic studies.

Keywords: COVID-19; aerosols; job exposure matrix; occupational exposure assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/3/448/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/3/448/ (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:22:y:2025:i:3:p:448-:d:1614734

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 ().