Impact of Post-COVID-19 Condition on the Canadian healthcare workforce: An agent-based modeling approach informed by living evidence syntheses to project long-term impacts on worker recovery and retention

Long COVID also known as Post-COVID-19 Condition (PCC) affects people's quality of life, social and family life, and multiple aspects of employment. Previous research has shown people with PCC are less productive on the job than before illness, more likely to miss work, and more likely to leave their employer or profession. PCC can significantly impact healthcare workers because they are more likely to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus than the general population. Even more, up to one-half of individuals infected with the virus might develop PCC symptoms such as tiredness or fatigue that interferes with daily life, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, and difficulty thinking or concentrating. Also, the pandemic has increased staff shortages, disrupted healthcare services (for example, delayed surgeries), and increased stress and burnout among healthcare workers. PCC-related issues and their impact on healthcare workers concern provincial and federal governments because they can lead to long-term strain on the healthcare workforce. We propose research evaluating the long-term health effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection and how those effects might burden the Canadian healthcare workforce. The first component of this research will collect evidence related to PCC outcomes in the working-age population (16 years and older). Next, we will use this information to develop a model that estimates the impact of PCC on the healthcare workforce one year, two years, and five years from now. The impact estimation will include healthcare worker recruitment and retention, labor shortages, and productivity losses. The information from our research will help policymakers better understand and quantify the burdens of PCC on the Canadian healthcare workforce and prioritize related policies to support human resource planning and development.