A national study suggests that those at greatest risk of long COVID are women, those aged 50-60, people with poor pre-pandemic mental health and those in poor general health, such as anyone with asthma or who is overweight.
Around two million people in the UK are affected by long COVID (ONS data, 1 May 2022), enduring symptoms for 12 weeks or more after they’ve been infected. Whilst the syndrome has been widely reported, the frequency and risk factors for the condition are not well understood.
In order to develop new treatments, Children of the 90s – along with nine other population-based cohort studies – has helped researchers to understand what causes some people to suffer the condition more than others. In parallel, researchers also utilised data from electronic health records collected by Spring 2021 for 1.1 million individuals diagnosed with COVID-19.
'Long COVID burden and risk factors in 10 UK longitudinal studies and electronic health records' by Ellen J. Thompson, Dylan M. Williams, Nishi Chaturvedi, Nicholas J. Timpson et al in Nature Communications [open access]