The Medical School and School of Public Health launch an initiative to study long-term effects of COVID-19.
Long COVID, a new condition that can affect people’s ability to work and carry on with regular life, affects millions of people around the world but remains poorly understood.
To meet the challenges brought on by this emerging syndrome, the Medical School is partnering with Brown’s School of Public Health to launch an initiative to rapidly study and communicate the significant impact of long COVID.
Led by pandemic experts Megan Ranney RES’08 F’10 MPH’10, MD, the Warren Alpert Foundation Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Ashish Jha, MD, dean of the School of Public Health, the initiative will also partner with the Medical School’s affiliated hospitals and the Rhode Island Department of Health. It expands on a recent initiative by the NIH that focuses on studying the clinical aspects of long COVID, and acknowledgements such as the Biden administration’s July announcement that people with the condition can qualify for disability under federal law.
“I see long COVID patients frequently in the ER, although they don’t know to call it that. The lasting effects of this disease can be life altering,” Ranney says. “Long COVID will have a profound impact on our society for years, if not for generations. By investing in closing knowledge gaps, adapting clinical approaches and workplace policies, and improving attention to equity, we can improve our collective ability to more effectively manage the long-term effects of the pandemic.”
