After hearing personal accounts about how the pandemic had affected essential workers, especially grocery store workers, graduate student Constancia Dominguez joined a research project to gather information about their experiences.

If the workplace is the intersection between public and occupational health, "then workplaces may be the only location where people are getting any type of health information," said Amber Mitchell, DrPH, MPH, CPH, in her AIHce EXP 2021 session.

COVID-19 can be prevented by applying the traditional hierarchy of controls. However, “the challenge is in proving efficacy to a wary and weary public,” according to Fred Boelter, CIH, PE, BCEE, FAIHA.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of involving OEHS professionals in pandemic response, protecting the health of essential workers, and developing controls for aerosolized and airborne virus transmission.

Consensus standards are helpful in crisis conditions because government decision-making cannot keep up with the unfolding situation. Getting involved in standard development is one way that OEHS professionals can help when public health is at stake.

The global COVID-19 response started as early as the final weeks of 2019. At the urging of scientists and medical experts, countries scrambled to respond, with a few nations taking early, decisive, non-pharmaceutical actions.

While every worker in the United States has been affected by the pandemic, not all have been affected equally or equitably. Recent studies illustrate the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on among racial and ethnic minority groups.

In his AIHce EXP 2021 presentation "COVID-19 Response: Inventing a New Science," Steven A. Lipson, CIH, CSP, discussed the initial response by industrial hygienists to the pandemic and how they modified their approaches.