• Sun M Yoo, Teresa C Liu, Yash Motwani, Myung S Sim, Nisha Viswanathan, Nathan Samras, Felicia Hsu, and Neil S Wenger.
• Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, 757 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA. smyoo@mednet.ucla.edu.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2022 Jun 1; 37 (8): 1988-1995.

BackgroundThe incidence of persistent clinical symptoms and risk factors in Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) in diverse US cohorts is unclear. While there are a disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths in older patients, ethnic minorities, and socially disadvantaged populations in the USA, little information is available on the association of these factors and PASC.ObjectiveTo evaluate the association of demographic and clinical characteristics with development of PASC.DesignProspective observational cohort of hospitalized and high-risk outpatients, April 2020 to February 2021.ParticipantsOne thousand thirty-eight adults with laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 infection.Main MeasuresDevelopment of PASC determined by patient report of persistent symptoms on questionnaires conducted 60 or 90 days after COVID-19 infection or hospital discharge. Demographic and clinical factors associated with PASC.Key ResultsOf 1,038 patients with longitudinal follow-up, 309 patients (29.8%) developed PASC. The most common persistent symptom was fatigue (31.4%) followed by shortness of breath (15.4%) in hospitalized patients and anosmia (15.9%) in outpatients. Hospitalization for COVID-19 (odds ratio [OR] 1.49, 95% [CI] 1.04-2.14), having diabetes (OR, 1.39; 95% CI 1.02-1.88), and higher BMI (OR, 1.02; 95% CI 1-1.04) were independently associated with PASC. Medicaid compared to commercial insurance (OR, 0.49; 95% CI 0.31-0.77) and having had an organ transplant (OR 0.44, 95% CI, 0.26-0.76) were inversely associated with PASC. Age, race/ethnicity, Social Vulnerability Index, and baseline functional status were not associated with developing PASC.ConclusionsThree in ten survivors with COVID-19 developed a subset of symptoms associated with PASC in our cohort. While ethnic minorities, older age, and social disadvantage are associated with worse acute COVID-19 infection and greater risk of death, our study found no association between these factors and PASC.© 2022. The Author(s).

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