University of Bristol

Academic Institute

No

CCU044

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable groups were asked to shield by the UK government, assuming that shielding would protect them from severe illness and/or death from COVID-19. However, recent studies found worse COVID-19 outcomes (infections, hospitalisations, deaths) amongst vulnerable groups compared to the rest of the population. We have identified several opportunities to improve upon previous studies to examine how COVID-19 outcomes (infections, hospitalisations, deaths) differ between vulnerable groups and the rest of the population and to see what effect shielding has had on those differences. Our study seeks to improve upon previous research on shielding by analysing data from England, which has not been done before. Previous studies were conducted in Scotland and West London therefore our study will: • Contain a much larger data set than these previous studies. This means that we can look in more detail at differences. • Extend the length of the follow-up period to 15 months (to June 2021). Previous studies on shielding examined COVID-19 outcomes within a 3-month period. This will help us look at whether the changes to government policy over time affected differences between vulnerable people and the rest of the population. • Include important contextual factors that could affect the risk of COVID-19 infection, such as time and geographic location. Previous studies on shielding did not consider that COVID-19 infections varied greatly from one area to another and over time.

Our study could inform policy for the current ongoing COVID-19 pandemic or for future pandemics by providing information on whether a shielding policy would be effective in preventing infections, severe outcomes, and/or death in vulnerable populations. Visit the BHF Data Science Centre website for more detailed information about project outputs. https://bhfdatasciencecentre.org/projects/ccu044/

This project accessed the following datasets within the Trusted Research Environment(s) for CVD-COVID-UK / COVID-IMPACT: - ENGLAND: - Civil Registration - Deaths - Covid-19 Second Generation Surveillance System - Covid-19 UK Non-hospital Antibody Testing Results - Covid-19 UK Non-hospital Antigen Testing Results - COVID-19 Vaccination Status - GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (COVID-19) - Hospital Episode Statistics Accident and Emergency - Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care - Hospital Episode Statistics Critical Care - ICNARC: Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre

13/04/2022

De-Personalised

TRE