Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Volume 49, Issue 5, Pages 1454-1467Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyaa134
Keywords
COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; prospective cohort; UK Biobank; infection; test data
Categories
Funding
- H2020-EXPANSE project (Horizon 2020 grant) [874627]
- LonglTools project (Horizon 2020) [874739]
- Cancer Research UK, Population Research Committee Project grant 'Mechanomics' [22184]
- EXPOSOME-NL through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science
- Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) [024.004.017]
- MRC Centre for Environment and Health
- National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre
- NIHR Health Protection Research Units in Environmental Exposures and Health
- NIHR Health Protection Research Units in Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards
- BHF Centre for Research Excellence at Imperial College London [RE/18/4/34215]
- MRC [MR/S019669/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Background: The recent COVID-19 outbreak has generated an unprecedented public health crisis, with millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. Using hospital-based or mortality data, several COVID-19 risk factors have been identified, but these may be confounded or biased. Methods: Using SARS-CoV-2 infection test data (n = 4509 tests; 1325 positive) from Public Health England, linked to the UK Biobank study, we explored the contribution of demographic, social, health risk, medical and environmental factors to COVID-19 risk. We used multivariable and penalized logistic regression models for the risk of (i) being tested, (ii) testing positive/negative in the study population and, adopting a test negative design, (iii) the risk of testing positive within the tested population. Results: In the fully adjusted model, variables independently associated with the risk of being tested for COVID-19 with odds ratio >1.05 were: male sex; Black ethnicity; social disadvantage (as measured by education, housing and income); occupation (healthcare worker, retired, unemployed); ever smoker; severely obese; comorbidities; and greater exposure to particulate matter (PM) 2.5 absorbance. Of these, only male sex, non-White ethnicity and lower educational attainment, and none of the comorbidities or health risk factors, were associated with testing positive among tested individuals. Conclusions: We adopted a careful and exhaustive approach within a large population-based cohort, which enabled us to triangulate evidence linking male sex, lower educational attainment and non-White ethnicity with the risk of COVID-19. The elucidation of the joint and independent effects of these factors is a high-priority area for further research to inform on the natural history of COVID-19.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available