The Burden & Dynamic of Post-COVID Conditions: A Patient-Centric Perspective
The syndrome known variously as Long COVID, Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID and Post-COVID conditions first came to light through patient self-reporting in the opening months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has since that time escalated into an exceptionally high-burden health condition across Canada and the world. On the basis of nationally representative samples conducted by Statistics Canada, the Office of the Chief Science Advisory of Canada estimates 1.4 million Canadians as living with post-COVID symptoms as of August 2022 -- a burden that fall disproportionately on women, lower-SES and vulnerable communities. While this burden is exceptionally diverse in its manifestations at an individual level -- with some studies attributing over 200 symptoms to it -- it is also often debilitating, imposing functional limitations across numerous domains, and limiting many patients' instrumental activities of daily living. Such conditions can also notably increase risk of mortality over the year or more following COVID-19 infection. This talk offers a glimpse of the evolving burden of post-covid conditions in Canada, through the lens of data from the Statistics Canada surveys, a patient-guided smartphone-based quantitative longitudinal study and associated focus groups. We will briefly characterize some early findings from the smartphone study and its focus groups, which started in Saskatchewan, is being expanded to other western provinces, and offers an adaptation planned for deployment through Metis Nation-Saskatchewan. We will further briefly discuss some of the opportunities and challenges associated with dynamic modeling of post-covid conditions, noting the varied character of 4 lines of agent-based modeling we have built to better understand the evolving burden of long COVID since 2021.