Anuradhaa Subramanian, a researcher at the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Applied Health Research and lead author of the paper, says looking at data on risk factors is of particular interest because it helps us determine what which could cause or contribute to persistent illness. Covid.
We already know that certain modifiable traits, such as smoking and obesity, increase the risk of various diseases and conditions, including persistent covid. However, others, such as biological sex and ethnic origin, also appear to be important.
Women, for example, are more prone to autoimmune diseases. Seeing the increased likelihood of women having persistent COVID in our study raises our interest in investigating whether autoimmunity or other causes may account for the increased risk in women. These observations will help to better target the factors to study that may be the cause of these persistent symptoms after infection, and how we can help patients who experience them.
Patient records from 2.3 million people allowed the research team to capture post-SARS-CoV-2 infections at a unique time in the global pandemic. The study focuses on the early phase of the pandemic in the UK, between January 2020 and April 2021, and offered the team the opportunity to compare a significant number of people who had coronavirus infections with a control group. of uninfected people.
The interdisciplinary team engaged epidemiologists, clinicians, data scientists, statisticians, and patients to decipher electronic health records to accurately capture lingering symptoms experienced after infection.
Dr Shamil Haroon points out that the findings are testament to the opportunities these public health datasets offer and the power of collaborative working to provide much-needed evidence about the experiences of many people who have been affected by persistent symptoms after infection. coronavirus.
I hope our research will also further validate the voice of patients and engagement groups and provide direction to support health responses to new and emerging diseases, he concludes.