PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Mutambudzi, Miriam AU - Niedzwiedz, Claire AU - Macdonald, Ewan Beaton AU - Leyland, Alastair AU - Mair, Frances AU - Anderson, Jana AU - Celis-Morales, Carlos AU - Cleland, John AU - Forbes, John AU - Gill, Jason AU - Hastie, Claire AU - Ho, Frederick AU - Jani, Bhautesh AU - Mackay, Daniel F AU - Nicholl, Barbara AU - O'Donnell, Catherine AU - Sattar, Naveed AU - Welsh, Paul AU - Pell, Jill P AU - Katikireddi, Srinivasa Vittal AU - Demou, Evangelia TI - Occupation and risk of severe COVID-19: prospective cohort study of 120 075 UK Biobank participants AID - 10.1136/oemed-2020-106731 DP - 2021 May 01 TA - Occupational and Environmental Medicine PG - 307--314 VI - 78 IP - 5 4099 - http://oem.bmj.com/content/78/5/307.short 4100 - http://oem.bmj.com/content/78/5/307.full SO - Occup Environ Med2021 May 01; 78 AB - Objectives To investigate severe COVID-19 risk by occupational group.Methods Baseline UK Biobank data (2006–10) for England were linked to SARS-CoV-2 test results from Public Health England (16 March to 26 July 2020). Included participants were employed or self-employed at baseline, alive and aged <65 years in 2020. Poisson regression models were adjusted sequentially for baseline demographic, socioeconomic, work-related, health, and lifestyle-related risk factors to assess risk ratios (RRs) for testing positive in hospital or death due to COVID-19 by three occupational classification schemes (including Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) 2000).Results Of 120 075 participants, 271 had severe COVID-19. Relative to non-essential workers, healthcare workers (RR 7.43, 95% CI 5.52 to 10.00), social and education workers (RR 1.84, 95% CI 1.21 to 2.82) and other essential workers (RR 1.60, 95% CI 1.05 to 2.45) had a higher risk of severe COVID-19. Using more detailed groupings, medical support staff (RR 8.70, 95% CI 4.87 to 15.55), social care (RR 2.46, 95% CI 1.47 to 4.14) and transport workers (RR 2.20, 95% CI 1.21 to 4.00) had the highest risk within the broader groups. Compared with white non-essential workers, non-white non-essential workers had a higher risk (RR 3.27, 95% CI 1.90 to 5.62) and non-white essential workers had the highest risk (RR 8.34, 95% CI 5.17 to 13.47). Using SOC 2000 major groups, associate professional and technical occupations, personal service occupations and plant and machine operatives had a higher risk, compared with managers and senior officials.Conclusions Essential workers have a higher risk of severe COVID-19. These findings underscore the need for national and organisational policies and practices that protect and support workers with an elevated risk of severe COVID-19.Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource (https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/; application No 41686 & 17333).