Approved Research

Investigating the prevention and treatment of post-COVID conditions in UK Biobank cohort

Lay summary

Our research project is focused on tackling the ongoing issue of long-term health problems that come after a COVID-19 infection, commonly known as "long COVID." In simple terms, we have four main goals: 1) We want to understand what kinds of health issues people face long after their initial recovery from COVID-19; 2) We're looking into what factors can be changed to prevent these ongoing health problems. This includes things like lifestyle, as well as markers in blood and genes; 3) We want to find out how current treatments like vaccines or antiviral medicines impact these long-term symptoms and if lifestyle changes can help too; and 4) We'll explore if long COVID itself has long-term negative effects on people's health.

Why is this important? While we know that long COVID exists, there isn't much information on how to prevent or treat it effectively. To fill this knowledge gap, we'll use a variety of scientific methods like studying real-world health data, analyzing genetic information, and even using machine learning to identify hidden patterns. We'll be working with the large set of health data available from the UK Biobank for this study.

Our project will last for three years. Our findings will have huge potential to inform policy makers, clinicians as well as patients on how to prevent and treat these persistent health issues after a COVID-19 infection.