Within a given occupation, men and women often face different risks of experiencing a work-related injury. For some occupations, like those in manufacturing, men are at higher injury risk. For others, like those in health care, women face higher risks.
But are those trends the same when it comes to the risks of infectious diseases?
According to a systematic review led by Dr. Aviroop Biswas, a scientist at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH), women and men in the same occupations have similar risks of getting an infectious disease from work—with a few exceptions.
The study is published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine (doi:10.1136/oemed-2024-109451).
“Worldwide, an estimated 476,000 workers die annually from occupational infectious diseases," says Biswas. "If we know whether certain groups of workers face higher infection risks, we can target prevention activities to those groups.”
The review was designed to answer the question: are the risks of infectious disease different for men and women doing the same jobs? To do this, the research team collected 63 studies published between 2016 and 2021. The studies all looked at workers’ risk of getting a work-related infectious disease. The studies also compared how that risk differed between women and men in the same occupations.
Of the nine studies that met a standard of high quality and had enough data to detect whether men and women faced different risks, only two found differences in risk between men and women.
The differences included a higher risk for men than for women of:
- hepatitis among patient-facing health-care workers, and
- parasitic infection among farmers.
The other seven studies found no difference in risk between men and women of:
- COVID-19 among patient-facing health-care workers and physicians,
- hepatitis among swine workers,
- influenza among poultry workers,
- tuberculosis among livestock workers, and
- toxoplasmosis among slaughterhouse workers.
Biswas led a similar systematic review in 2022 looking at overall workplace injury risk for men and women from different causes. That review found quite a few occupations where injury risks differed for men and women—and jobs where women were at a higher risk.
“Because of other studies on work injury risk, we expected to find some jobs with greater infectious disease risks for women compared to men. But we found was a bit of a surprise,” says Biswas. “That is, while most studies reported no differences between men and women, when we did find a difference, the risks were higher for men, not women.”
Why are men at higher risk of some infections?
One possible explanation for the observed differences in infection rates between men and women in the same jobs may be due to biological factors. “There research evidence around how sex chromosomes can influence men’s and women’s vulnerability to different pathogens—germs, viruses, parasites—and responses to different illnesses,” says Biswas.
Another factor may be that men and women are assigned different tasks even in the same jobs, says Biswas. “For example, in a health-care setting, male orderlies and attendants may be more likely than female ones to be called in to respond to aggressive patients,” he adds. “We’ve seen in other reviews how that difference in tasks can put male orderlies at greater risk of physical injuries. These and other types of differences in the tasks men and women perform at work may be at play when it comes to risk of infections.”
Biswas also notes that differences in behaviour could be a factor. For example, some research suggests that women in health-care professions are more likely than men to wash their hands regularly and wear personal protective equipment. In terms of farm work, women may be more cautious when in contact with animals. These factors could reduce women’s exposure to pathogens compared to men.
More focus needed on sex and gender in study design
Biswas notes that only nine out of 63 studies in the review were of high enough quality or had enough data to detect differences if they were present. A key takeaway from the review was the need for greater attention to sex and gender differences in the design of studies, he adds.
“The evidence on this question remains limited,” says Biswas. “Our knowledge on this topic may change or fill out as more high-quality studies are conducted, and as gender and sex differences become more of a focus in these types of studies.”
He also notes that studies often compare men's and women’s health risks across the labour market as whole. But these comparisons don’t address gendered segregation in the Canadian labour market—that is, the fact that men and women often work in different occupations in Canada. Studies that focus on risks faced by men and women in the same jobs are needed to accurately identify whether differences exist. By focusing on workers in the same job, this study enables a more direct assessment of differences in men and women’s infection risk. Narrowing down on differences between men and women in this way can help to identify measures to protect workers at the highest risk of work-related infections.