Investigating the long term impact of COVID-19.pdf

This is a survey study for the investigation of long COVID in the UK population. People with persistent symptoms following acute infection with SARS-CoV-2 will answer a web-based questionnaire and will be stratified - regardless of COVID-19 severity (from asymptomatic to severe) - according to neurological complications, demographics (e.g. ethnicity), presence of pre-existing comorbidities and/or mental health issues, onset of new health related conditions/mental health issues, COVID-19 vaccine presence/absence, environmental (e.g. pollution) and lifestyle factors (e.g. diet). This is important to enable a robust comparable statistical analysis and better understand health, environmental and lifestyle factors that may trigger long COVID.

The survey will allow us to stratify the UK population into specific clusters of people carrying similar phenotypic traits and understand whether there is any association between long COVID and pre-existing conditions or newly developed health conditions, presence/absence of COVID-19 vaccine, age, gender, ethnicity etc, environmental and lifestyle factors. As the survey will be open to hospitalised and not-hospitalised individuals (regardless of their COVID-19 symptoms severity) the data from this study will reflect the whole UK population and not part of it.

We anticipate that the data from this survey will lead to further research (genomic study) investigating genetic risk factors that may explain not only the heterogeneity of COVID-19 symptoms severity and recovery but also the susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Altogether, this will provide a comprehensive picture which can help develop improved prognosis and tailored therapeutic strategies to halt post-infection mechanisms and prevent illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease.