CVD-COVID-UK: Cardiovascular disease and COVID-19 [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
CVD-COVID-UK. Cardiovascular disease and COVID-19: using UK-wide linked routine healthcare data to address the impact of cardiovascular disease on COVID-19 and the impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular diseases.
IRAS ID
283869
Contact name
Cathie Sudlow
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Health Data Research UK
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major global challenge, whose impacts on population health, healthcare services and the wider economy will be apparent for many years.\n\nPatients with cardiovascular disease have an elevated risk of symptomatic infection and mortality. This could be due to cardiovascular conditions themselves (e.g., heart disease, stroke), their risk factors (e.g., age, raised blood pressure, obesity), medications, or combinations of these. Understanding which patients are affected and why will be a major step towards developing strategies to reduce this excess risk. \n\nJust as important as the effects of pre-existing cardiovascular disease on COVID-19, are the impacts of COVID-19 on cardiovascular disease. \n\nThe direct impacts include immediate complications (e.g., acute cardiac injury, stroke) as well as the potential for increased risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular events in the longer term, through inflammation, blood clotting risk or other factors. However, the nature and extent of these direct effects is far from fully understood. \n\nCrucially, the response by the government and health services to the COVID-19 pandemic has indirect impacts on the presentation, diagnosis, management and outcomes of cardiovascular diseases. There has been a dramatic decline in the numbers of people attending hospital with heart attack and stroke in recent weeks. Further, patients are more often arriving too late for beneficial acute treatments (e.g., clot busting drugs or mechanical clot removal) and after potentially preventable complications have developed. To inform government and NHS policy, we urgently need a deeper understanding of these unintended consequences, including the range of conditions affected, variation by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation and geography, effects on different in- and out-patient services, and response to mitigating actions (e.g., regional and national government advice). \n\nWe propose to address these issues through analyses of linked, nationally collated healthcare datasets across the four nations of the UK. [Study relying on COPI notice]
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/NE/0161
Date of REC Opinion
27 May 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion