NIH RECOVER research identifies potential long COVID disparities
Black and Hispanic Americans appear to experience more symptoms and health problems related to long COVID, a lay term that captures an array of symptoms and health problems, than white people, but are not as likely to be diagnosed with the condition, according to new research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The findings – from two different studies by NIH’s Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative – add to a growing body of research aimed to better understand the complex symptoms and other issues associated with long COVID that millions have experienced.
In one analysis, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, researchers looked at the health records of 62,339 adults who received a positive COVID-19 test at one of five academic health centers in New York City, all between March 2020 and October 2021. They tracked the patients’ health for one to six months after the positive test and compared the findings to 247,881 adults who never had COVID.
In the second study, which published in BMC Medicine, researchers analyzed data from the electronic health records of 33,782 adults and children who received a diagnosis for long COVID between October 2021 and May 2022 at one of 34 U.S. medical centers. All had been given a diagnosis – Post COVID-19 condition, unspecified – the code for the condition first introduced in U.S. healthcare systems in October 2021.
