Construction workers are five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than their peers in other professions, according to a new study from University of Texas at Austin researchers.

“Allowing unrestricted construction work was associated with an increase of COVID-19 hospitalization rates through mid-August 2020,” the study’s authors note in their findings. They analyzed five months of hospitalization data in Austin.

The study also highlights the disproportionate representation of Hispanic workers in the construction industry in the U.S., including in Texas, and the compounded risks facing that growing demographic.

About 30% of construction workers nationally are Hispanic or Latino — almost twice the percentage they comprise in the overall labor force. The Hispanic population is known to experience more underlying health conditions linked to severe cases of COVID-19. They’re also more likely to have more people living in the same house, and feel pressure to continue working even when sick, according to the authors.

Although Hispanics account for 40% of Texas’ population, they represent 56% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths, according to the latest data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The study was performed by UT Austin’s COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, an effort by social scientists and engineers to model and study trends around the COVID-19 pandemic. It was published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, a subsidiary of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health also had a part in supporting the study.

When officials enacted lockdowns in cities across Texas in the spring, Austin city leaders asked UT to model the risks associated with allowing unrestricted work at construction sites. The study results bore out what they suspected.

“The rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations among construction workers suggests that the virus has been spreading at work sites, and more should be done to protect the health and safety of the workers,” said Remy Pasco, one of the study’s authors.

Construction work was deemed essential during the lockdowns. After some local leaders placed stricter regulations on parts of the construction industry, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order at the end of March that allowed commercial and residential building to continue.

Another of the study’s authors, professor Lauren Ancel Meyers, said the findings don’t necessarily mean construction work needs to stop. “It means we need to go to great lengths to ensure the health and safety of workers when they do go to work,” she said in a statement.

The study’s authors also raise concerns about how to measure the spread of the virus from work sites to the general public, given limited contact tracing. A previous study requested by Austin suggested spread at work sites could have larger repercussions for communities where workers live.

In a statement, Workers Defense Project co-founder and co-executive director Emily Timm called the findings “a clear call to action to elected officials” to create a “real enforcement mechanism.”

The study also recommends testing at work sites and “effective tracing and isolation of detected cases” to minimize virus spread.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area ranked second among the country’s largest building markets in September, behind only New York City. More than 155,000 people work in the local building sector, according to AGC. Dallas had one of the largest year-over-year construction job gains in the U.S., despite the pandemic.

Twitter: @DomDiFurio