Cohort Profile: Virus Watch - understanding community incidence, symptom profiles and transmission of COVID-19 in relation to population movement and behaviour

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  • Thomas Byrne
  • Jana Kovar
  • Sarah Beale
  • Isobel Braithwaite
  • Ellen Fragaszy
  • Wing Lam Erica Fong
  • Cyril Geismar
  • Susan Hoskins
  • Annalan M.D. Navaratnam
  • Vincent Nguyen
  • Parth Patel
  • Madhumita Shrotri
  • Alexei Yavlinsky
  • Pia Hardelid
  • Linda Wijlaars
  • Eleni Nastouli
  • Moira Spyer
  • Anna Aryee
  • Vasileios Lampos
  • Rachel A. McKendry
  • Tao Cheng
  • Anne M. Johnson
  • Susan Michie
  • Jo Gibbs
  • Richard Gilson
  • Alison Rodger
  • Ibrahim Abubakar
  • Andrew Hayward
  • Robert W. Aldridge
This article aims to provide evidence on which public health approaches are most likely to be effective in reducing the spread and impact of the virus and investigates community incidence, symptom profiles and transmission of COVID-19 in relation to population movement and behaviour. In all, 28,527 households and 58,628 participants of age (0-98 years, mean age 48), were recruited between June 2020 and March 2022. Data collected include demographics and details of occupation, comorbidities, medications and infection-prevention behaviours. Households are followed up weekly with illness surveys capturing symptoms and their severity, activities in the week prior to symptom onset and any COVID-19 test results. Additional occasional surveys capture household finance, employment, mental health, access to health care, vaccination uptake, activities and contacts. Data have been linked to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), inpatient and critical care episodes, outpatient visits, emergency care contacts, mortality, virology testing and vaccination data held by National Health Service (NHS) Digital. Nested within Virus Watch are a serology and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) cohort study (n=12,877) and a vaccine evaluation study (n=19,555).
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftInternational Journal of Epidemiology
Vol/bind52
Udgave nummer5
Sider (fra-til)E263-E272
ISSN0300-5771
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Wellcome Trust through a Wellcome Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship to R.W.A. [206602] and a Clinical PhD Fellowship to A.A. [206441/Z/17/Z]. I.B. is supported by an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. S.B. and T.B. are supported by an MRC doctoral studentship (MR/N013867/1). Research at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health led by P.H. and L.W. is supported by the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre.

Funding Information:
The United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Department of Health and Social Care National Institute for Health and Care Research (DHSC NIHR) funded Virus Watch in April 2020 under the COVID-19 Rapid Response Call 2. During the early stage of the pandemic in the UK, (February/March 2020), data on COVID-19 were largely collected in hospital settings. Our aim was to bring together an experienced team of respiratory infectious disease epidemiologists to rapidly establish a national community cohort study of COVID-19 in households living in England and Wales which built upon our experience from Flu Watch—a community cohort designed to estimate community burden of influenza and influenza-like illness. The DHSC/UKRI awarded additional funding to the study (under the Rapid Response Initiative call) in August 2020 to recruit larger numbers of minority ethnic and migrant populations when it became increasingly apparent that these groups were under-represented in research studies although experiencing greater risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [Grant Ref: MC_PC 19070], awarded to UCL on 30 March 2020, and Medical Research Council [Grant Ref: MR/V028375/1], awarded on 17 August 2020. The study also received $15 000 of advertising credit from Facebook to support a pilot social media recruitment campaign on 18 August 2020. The antibody testing undertaken by the vaccine evaluation subcohort was supported by funding from the Department of Health and Social Care from February 2021 to March 2022.

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