PhD defence Wing Lam Erica Fong

Keywords: COVID-19, Post-COVID Condition, Health Inequalities, Post-Acute Infection Syndrome

"Social Inequalities in COVID-19 and Post-Acute Infection Syndromes: The Role of Deprivation, Ethnicity, and Migration Status"

This thesis investigated how socioeconomic deprivation, ethnicity, and migration status drive health inequalities in COVID-19 outcomes and post-acute infection syndromes (PAIS) in the UK using data from the Virus Watch study.

The research first looked at how effective Virus Watch, as a small-scale surveillance system, is at estimating infection trends, by comparing our estimates with the government’s official survey.  then looked at whether people who were born outside the UK were more likely to be admitted to hospital for or with COVID-19. Given the higher infection rates and more serious illness seen in these communities, the study then explored whether people from deprived areas, ethnic minority backgrounds, or migrant communities were more likely to develop ongoing symptoms after COVID, long COVID, and whether these symptoms made everyday life harder. and quality of life worse. The study also looked at how people’s quality of life is affected by long-term symptoms after a respiratory infection by deprivation levels.

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