Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Sun Exposure of UK Office Workers.

Katarzyna Anna Baczynska,Rebecca J Rendell,Marina Khazova

doi:10.3390/ijerph18084362

Katarzyna Anna Baczynska, Rebecca J Rendell + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084362

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Abstract

The impact of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in April–June 2020 on UV exposure of office workers was assessed using an online survey on time spent outdoors and environmental data for different locations in the UK. Without the need for commuting and with the flexibility of homeworking, weekday time spent outdoors was higher in the 2020 lockdown than in the same period in 2017. The weekday erythema effective radiant exposure was higher in 2020 due to an additional 45 min outdoors in the late afternoon that was not observed in 2017 and high UV levels due to extremely sunny weather in spring. The lockdown did not impact the frequency of time spent outdoors around midday, which was still governed by work commitments, and at the weekends, no difference between 2020 and 2017 was observed. In 2020, responders felt that time outdoors was very important for their health and well-being.

Highlights

The responders were from the following age groups, the Public Health England (PHE) staff age-profile data are provided in brackets:
The low response rate was likely affected by PHE frontline COVID-19 emergency response and potential survey fatigue due to regularly issued monthly staff well-being surveys during the lockdown
Information on the impact of the lockdown on visiting green and natural spaces in England was collected by the People and Nature Survey (PN) which collects data through an online survey relating to people’s enjoyment, access, understanding of and attitudes towards the natural environment, and its contributions to well-being every month since April 2020 [18]

Summary

Introduction

Established and emerging health benefits from sun exposure include cutaneous vitamin D synthesis and its importance for health [7], as well as the role of UV-A and visible sunlight in blood pressure modulation, and melatonin and serotonin regulation for mood and cognition [8,9]. Sun exposure depends on an individual’s behaviour [10,11] and ambient levels that change with latitude and altitude, the time of year and day, and meteorological conditions [12]. Weekday sun exposure is governed by work patterns, family commitments, and lifestyle

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