Use of Private Sector Workforce Respiratory Disease Short-Term Disability Claims to Assess SARS-CoV-2, Mexico, 2020.

Mauricio Hernandez-Avila,Manuel Ortega-Alvarez,Waldo Vieyra-Romero,David Barros-Sierra,Hector Gutierrez-Diaz,Emmanuell Ramirez-Polanco,Rebeca Velasco-Reyna,Rodrigo Zepeda-Tello,Marcela Tamayo-Ortiz

doi:10.3201/eid2801.211357

Abstract

We examined respiratory disease short-term disability claims submitted to the Mexican Social Security Institute during 2020. A total of 1,631,587 claims were submitted by 19.1 million insured workers. Cumulative incidence (8.5%) was 3.6 times higher than that for January 2015‒December-2019. Workers in healthcare, social assistance, self-service, and retail stores were disproportionately affected.

Highlights

We examined respiratory disease short-term disability claims submitted to the Mexican Social Security Institute during 2020
We evaluated respiratory disease short-term disability claims (RD-STDC) outbreak severity by using the moving epidemic method (3) to estimate epidemic threshold and epidemic intensity (EI) level for the 2015–2019 winter seasons
When we compared these data with those for 2015–2019, we found that the total RD-STDC during 2020 were 2.9–5.0 times higher in all sectors

Summary

Introduction

We linked workers through their social security number to their employer’s activity, sector, and subsector and to IMSS registries for SARS-CoV-2 testing information (real-time PCR). We described RD-STDC by using weekly rates per 10,000 workers and plotted the claims by epidemiologic week and by economic sector and subsector. We use industry sectors (subsectors) included in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes: agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting (NAICS-Sector 11); mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (NAICS-Sector 21); manufacturing (NAICS-Sectors 31–33), food manufacturing, textile mills, transportation equipment, computer and electronic products; construction (NAICS-Sector 23), retail trade (NAICS-Sectors 44 and 45), food and beverage stores, general merchandise stores, self-service and retail stores); communications and transportation (NAICS-Sectors 48 and 49); services for companies, homes, and people (NAICS-Sectors 56 and 72, accommodation, food services, and drinking places); and social and community services (NAICS-Sectors 61, 62, and 71, educational services, arts, entertainment, and recreation, health care and social assistance).

Results

Conclusion