RECOVER Studies includes the research RECOVER is doing that does not give a medicine or treatment for COVID. Instead, participants are paid to do tests and have check-ups in observational cohort studies. Researchers also test human tissue, find patterns in electronic health records, and track COVID infections using digital health data.
These are studies where people are paid to do tests and have check-ups, but are not given a treatment or medicine for COVID. Researchers observe them over a long period of time to see how COVID affects their health. This type of study is called an observational cohort study. RECOVER Studies has cohort studies for 3 groups of people. Each study has a protocol, which is a detailed plan with step-by-step instructions for how researchers will carry out the study. Each study also has survey questions that participants answer to give researchers information about themselves and their health.
Adults over age 18 joined the study. This includes people who:
Adults who were pregnant after January 2020 joined the study. This includes people who did and did not have COVID while they were pregnant. The study staff also asked people to have their child join the study.
Researchers will learn how having COVID when pregnant affects a person and their baby’s health.
Children and their parents (or caregivers) will join the study. This includes children of all ages, from newborns to young adults up to age 25 years. This includes people who:
This will also include children with certain types of Long COVID, including MIS-C (multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children) and myocarditis.
A protocol is a study’s plan.
It is a written plan and description of a study that tells researchers how to set up and do a study. It is like a step-by-step instruction guide to make sure that RECOVER researchers at all study sites do the study in the same way. This helps us make connections across different study sites so we can find answers about Long COVID faster.
Each protocol includes the study’s:
Goals
Design
MethodsIn addition to cohort studies, we’re learning about Long COVID in other ways such as testing human tissue, finding patterns in electronic health records, and collecting information daily from RECOVER’s wearable devices.
An autopsy is a medical exam of a body after death. Tissue pathology is the study of tissue samples in a lab to learn how a disease affects different parts of the body.
RECOVER researchers study the bodies of people who died after having COVID, including people who did and didn’t have Long COVID. By doing autopsies and tissue pathology studies, researchers can learn how and why Long COVID affects different parts of the body in ways that aren’t possible when people are alive.
EHRs are digital versions of patients’ medical records. Each time a person gets healthcare, their doctor and other providers enter information into their EHR, including current and past health problems, symptoms, and treatments.
RECOVER Studies researchers use EHRs of people who had healthcare for COVID or Long COVID. RECOVER Studies has created one of the world’s largest collections of EHRs, with more than 60 million people’s records across the United States.
RECOVER Studies are helping researchers learn about Long COVID. Along with papers published in scientific journals, RECOVER creates easy to understand summaries of the results.
Want to learn about RECOVER Clinical Trials testing a new, possible treatment for Long COVID?
