Differential risk of healthcare workers versus the general population during outbreak, war and pandemic crises

Abstract

Healthcare workers may have different risk for severe outcomes compared with the general population during diverse crises. This paper introduces the concept of healthcare worker versus population hazard (HPH), the risk of an outcome of interest in active healthcare workers compared with the general population they serve. HPH can be expressed with relative risk (HPH(r)) and absolute risk difference (HPH(a)) metrics. Illustrative examples are drawn from infectious outbreaks, war, and the COVID-19 pandemic on death outcomes. HPH can be extreme for lethal outbreaks (HPH(r) = 30 to 143, HPH(a) = 8 to 91 per 1000 for Ebola deaths in 3 Western African countries in 2013-5), and modestly high in relative terms and very high in absolute terms for protracted, major armed conflicts (HPH(r) = 1.38 and HPH(a) = 10.2 for Syria during 2011–2024). Conversely, healthcare workers had 8-12-fold lower risk than the population they served for pandemic excess deaths (physicians in USA) or COVID-19 deaths (physicians in Ontario, healthcare workers in Finland), while healthcare workers in Indonesia did not have this advantage for COVID-19 deaths versus the general population. HPH is susceptible to data inaccuracies in numbers of at-risk populations and of outcomes of interest. Importantly, inferences about healthcare worker risk can be misleading, if deaths of retired healthcare workers contaminate the risk calculations– as in the case of misleading early perceptions of exaggerated COVID-19 risk for healthcare professionals. HPH can offer useful insights for risk assessment to healthcare professionals, the general public, and policy makers and may be useful to monitor for planning and interventions during crises.