COVID-19 and economic outcomes

The sudden appearance of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2 virus; COVID-19) in 2019 caused substantial changes to our daily lives. The COVID-19 pandemic had substantial economic impacts on health and health care services, triggered a national lockdown, introduced social distancing rules, and closed schools.  Many households, particularly the self-employed and households with children, struggled with deteriorating well-being, limited access to health care and reduced daily income. Nevertheless, there has been a paucity of evidence based on survey data collected from adults in the UK that measures the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a previous study, we successfully estimated the impacts of COVID-19 on the well-being and health-related quality of life of individuals and households in the UK using EMIS Health Survey data. EMIS Health and Patient Access has developed a COVID-19 Symptom Surveillance tool in collaboration with the Royal College of General Practitioner’s Research and Surveillance Centre and the University of Oxford. The tool also provides data on the impact the pandemic had on the employment status, health and social care resource use, changes in work patterns and lost income of survey respondents.

In this study, as an extension to the previous study, we plan to analyse data collected as part of the survey with the purpose of estimating the economic impacts associated with COVID-19. We will assess how these economic impacts varied by a range of factors, including symptoms associated with the COVID-19, stage of illness, socioeconomic status, sociodemographic characteristics, and stages of economic lockdown.