Demographic, behavioural and occupational risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in UK healthcare workers: a retrospective observational study

Objective Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection than the general population. This group is pivotal to healthcare system resilience during the COVID-19, and future, pandemics. We investigated demographic, social, behavioural and occupational risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs.Design/setting/participants HCWs enrolled in a large-scale sero-epidemiological study at a UK university teaching hospital were sent questionnaires spanning a 5-month period from March to July 2020. In a retrospective observational cohort study, univariate logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. A Least Absolute Shrinkage Selection Operator regression model was used to identify variables to include in a multivariate logistic regression model.Results Among 2258 HCWs, highest ORs associated with SARS-CoV-2 antibody seropositivity on multivariate analysis were having a household member previously testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (OR 6.94 (95% CI 4.15 to 11.6); p