PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Rhead, Rebecca AU - Wels, Jacques AU - Moltrecht, Bettina AU - Shaw, Richard John AU - Silverwood, Richard AU - Zhu, Jingmin AU - Hughes, Alun AU - Chaturvedi, Nishi AU - Demou, Evangelia AU - Katikireddi, Srinivasa Vittal AU - Ploubidis, George TI - Long COVID and financial outcomes: evidence from four longitudinal population surveys AID - 10.1136/jech-2023-221059 DP - 2024 Jul 01 TA - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health PG - 458--465 VI - 78 IP - 7 4099 - http://jech.bmj.com/content/78/7/458.short 4100 - http://jech.bmj.com/content/78/7/458.full SO - J Epidemiol Community Health2024 Jul 01; 78 AB - Background Long-term sequelae of COVID-19 (long COVID) include muscle weakness, fatigue, breathing difficulties and sleep disturbance over weeks or months. Using UK longitudinal data, we assessed the relationship between long COVID and financial disruption.Methods We estimated associations between long COVID (derived using self-reported length of COVID-19 symptoms) and measures of financial disruption (subjective financial well-being, new benefit claims, changes in household income) by analysing data from four longitudinal population studies, gathered during the first year of the pandemic. We employed modified Poisson regression in a pooled analysis of the four cohorts adjusting for a range of potential confounders, including pre-pandemic (pre-long COVID) factors.Results Among the 20 112 observations across four population surveys, 13% reported having COVID-19 with symptoms that impeded their ability to function normally—10.7% had such symptoms for <4 weeks (acute COVID-19), 1.2% had such symptoms for 4–12 weeks (ongoing symptomatic COVID-19) and 0.6% had such symptoms for >12 weeks (post-COVID-19 syndrome). We found that post-COVID-19 syndrome was associated with worse subjective financial well-being (adjusted relative risk ratios (aRRRs)=1.57, 95% CI=1.25, 1.96) and new benefit claims (aRRR=1.79, CI=1.27, 2.53). Associations were broadly similar across sexes and education levels. These results were not meaningfully altered when scaled to represent the population by age.Conclusions Long COVID was associated with financial disruption in the UK. If our findings reflect causal effects, extending employment protection and financial support to people with long COVID may be warranted.Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data for the National Child Development Study (SN 6137), British Cohort Study (SN 8547), Next Steps (SN 5545), Millennium Cohort Study (SN 8682) and all Cohort COVID-19 surveys (SN 8658) are available through the UK Data Service repository. There are no conditions for reuse (https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/help/data-types/longitudinal-data-studies/).