HDR UK

IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE HEALTH OF INDIVIDUALS WITH LONG TERM CONDITIONS

The successfully awarded research project through a funding call by Health Data Research UK and the Alan Turing Institute is led by Clare Gillies (University of Leicester). The research project will work to use national data to answer this key COVID-19 research question.

The indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have a big impact on people with long-term health conditions such as those with high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, depression, and cardiovascular disease. For this project, we plan to use data that is routinely collected in health care settings to investigate how lockdown has affected these individuals. We will see how their health has changed over lockdown, look at serious health problems that develop (including hospitalization and death), and work out the major risk factors for these events. This will help us identify which people should be given priority for face-to-face appointments as health care settings open up.

In addition, we want to look at which type of people with long term conditions are more likely to be readmitted to hospital after COVID-19, and finally we will look at different methods that can be used for answering these clinical questions. We are collaborating with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and will use data collected in hospitals, at doctor surgeries, national Census data, and mortality data.