Skip Navigation
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document
Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document

Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: The Population-Level Impacts of Excluding Norovirus-Infected Food Workers From the Workplace: A Mathematical Modeling Study.

Authors: Yang, Wen; Steele, Molly; Lopman, Ben; Leon, Juan S; Hall, Aron J

Published In Am J Epidemiol, (2019 01 01)

Abstract: Norovirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis and foodborne disease in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration recommends that food workers infected with norovirus be excluded from the workplace while symptomatic and for 48 hours after their symptoms subside. Compliance with this recommendation is not ideal, and the population-level impacts of changes in food-worker compliance have yet to be quantified. We aimed to assess the population impacts of varying degrees of compliance with the current recommendation through the use of a compartmental model. We modeled the number and proportion of symptomatic norovirus cases averted annually in the US population (using data from 1983-2014) in specific age groups (children aged <5 years, children aged 5-17 years, adults aged 18-64 years, and adults aged ≥65 years) under various scenarios of food-worker exclusion (i.e., proportion compliant and days of postsymptomatic exclusion) in comparison with a referent scenario which assumed that 66.6¯% of norovirus-symptomatic food workers and 0% of postsymptomatic food workers were excluded from work. Overall, we estimated that 6.0 million cases of norovirus have already been avoided annually under the referent scenario and that 6.7 million (28%) more cases might be avoided through 100% compliance with the current recommendations. Substantial population-level benefits were predicted from improved compliance in exclusion of norovirus-infected food workers from the workplace-benefits that may be realized through policies or programs incentivizing self-exclusion.

PubMed ID: 30202923 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Caliciviridae Infections/prevention & control*; Caliciviridae Infections/transmission; Child; Child, Preschool; Food Services/standards*; Foodborne Diseases/prevention & control*; Humans; Infant; Middle Aged; Models, Theoretical*; Norovirus; United States/epidemiology; Workplace/standards*; Young Adult

Back
to Top