Across the world acute COVID-19 illness has affected the most disadvantaged in society the most. However, researchers have not looked in much detail how people’s social circumstances affect their recovery from COVID-19.
In our study, led by Dr Nathan Cheetham (Senior Postdoctoral Data Scientist), we asked members of the CSS Biobank, and another UK-based health study, TwinsUK, if they still had symptoms after having COVID-19. We looked at how advantaged or disadvantaged they were at the start of the pandemic, based on information about their sex, ethnic group, education level, local area, and employment.
In both CSS Biobank and TwinsUK, people who were more disadvantaged were more likely to still have symptoms long after having COVID-19. In contrast, more advantaged people were more likely to have fully recovered. We also saw that people who had negative experiences during the pandemic such as losing their job, being unable to afford their bills or not being able to access health & social care services were less likely to recover.
More work is needed to understand how and why recovery was so different for people with different circumstances.
Cheetham, N. J., Bowyer, V., García, M. P., Bowyer, R. C. E., Carpentieri, J. D., Guise, A., Thompson, E. J., Sudre, C. H., Molteni, E., Antonelli, M., Penfold, R. S., Harvey, N. R., Canas, L. S., Rjoob, K., Murray, B., Kerfoot, E., Hammers, A., Ourselin, S., Duncan, E. L., & Steves, C. J. (2025). Social determinants of recovery from ongoing symptoms following COVID-19 in two UK longitudinal studies: A prospective cohort study. BMJ Public Health, 3, e001166.
Links to publications
Online journal article in BMJ Public Health
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