Occupational and industry prevalence of new long‐term symptoms within American Red Cross blood donors with and without history of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection

Purpose Limited information is known about the burden of Long COVID by occupation and industry. This study compares the occurrence of self‐reported new long‐term symptoms lasting 4 weeks or longer among blood donors with and without prior SARS‐CoV‐2 infection by occupation and industry. Methods The American Red Cross invited blood donors 18 years and older who donated during May 4–December 31, 2021 to participate in online surveys. New long‐term symptoms lasting 4 weeks or longer were assessed by self‐reported occurrence of any of 35 symptoms since March 2020. SARS‐CoV‐2 infection status was determined by serological testing and self‐report. We describe the prevalence of new long‐term symptoms by SARS‐CoV‐2 infection status. We calculate the difference in reported new long‐term symptoms by SARS‐CoV‐2 infection status within occupation and industry categories. Results Data were collected from 27,907 employed adults – 9763 were previously infected and 18,234 were never infected with SARS‐CoV‐2. New long‐term symptoms were more prevalent among those previously infected compared to the never‐infected respondents (45% vs 24%, p