Ongoing mitigation strategies and further needs of the United States food industry to control COVID-19 in the work environment

  1. Sebastian Llanos-Soto
  2. Ece Bulut
  3. Sarah I. Murphy
  4. Christopher J. Henry
  5. Claire Zoellner
  6. Martin Wiedmann
  7. Diane Wetherington
  8. Aaron Adalja
  9. Samuel D. Alcaine
  10. Renata Ivanek

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had dire effects on the United States (US) food industry through impacts on workers’ health and wellbeing and supply chain disruptions. The objectives of this study were to determine what the food industry needs to be able to control COVID-19 impacts in the work environment and what mitigation strategies are being implemented. A web-based needs assessment survey was distributed from January to April 2021, via 13 food professional/trade organizations and 2 social networks, targeting management professionals at food (produce, dairy, poultry, and beef/pork) processing facilities and produce farm operations in the US. Statistical analyses evaluated patterns in self-reported adoption of mitigation strategies against COVID-19 in the participants’ facilities/operations and perceived needs of the industry regarding COVID-Responses to open-ended questions were analyzed using thematic analysis. In total 145 responses were received, of which 79 were usable, including 38 (48%) from the dairy, 17 (22%) from the fresh produce, and 24 (30%) from a mixture of other food industry sectors. Only two usable responses were from the beef/pork sector and none from the poultry sector. Findings revealed that several social distancing, biosecurity, and surveillance mitigation strategies against COVID-19 are commonly implemented in the participants’ facilities/operations, but their implementation frequency differs by the facility/operation size and industry sector. Also, findings indicated that collaboration between the food industry and government agencies, contingency plans and appropriate training, and new technologies are needed to control COVID- 19 in the food industry. Subject to limitations associated with the relatively low response rate (possible selection bias), the findings suggest that the US food industry is prepared to safeguard workers’ health and businesses in the event of a new COVID-19 variant or similar future disaster, provided that appropriate structures are put in place to ensure coordination and compliance, both before and during such an outbreak.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.06.21261702: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: After clicking on the link participants were shown an introductory letter that provided information about the purpose of the survey and asked to consent to take part in the study.
    IRB: The study was approved by the Cornell University Institutional Review Board for Human Participants (IRB protocol #2006009660).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power AnalysisNo power-based sample calculation was conducted due to the preliminary nature of the investigation.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The data underlying the results presented in the study are available in Zenodo (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.5165334).
    Zenodo
    suggested: (ZENODO, RRID:SCR_004129)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    This shortage in PPE and other hygiene supplies was a consequence of disruptions in the PPE supply chain in the US [43] and elsewhere, whose weaknesses were exposed during this pandemic [44]. The survey findings about the lack of access to preventative measures strongly suggest that establishing a reliable and efficient system to ensure PPE availability and distribution to food facilities/operations is essential for the success of disaster preparedness plans against future pandemics. Altogether, our findings suggest that sectors of the food industry represented in the survey are prepared to implement biosafety strategies in the event of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 beta-coronavirus, future COVID-19 pandemics or similar disasters caused by airborne-transmitted pathogens, although the success in their adoption will strongly depend on the establishment of measures to strengthen the local and global supply chain of PPE and other relevant resources. Contrary to other biosafety strategies, the current study revealed that air filtering and ventilation were scarcely implemented among facilities/operations (at least as of early 2021) due to the lack of or insufficient information about cost-effectiveness and guidance. These findings are somewhat unexpected considering that ventilation and air filtering have been recommended in late 2020 by the CDC as engineering controls (i.e., measures that do not interfere with employees’ work but prevent their interaction with COVID-19) intended...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.08.06.21261702v1 on medRxiv