COVYOUTHdata - Early detection, understanding and management of long-term consequences of COVID-19 in children and adolescents

>Federal Ministry of Health (BMG)

Statistical AnalysesDisease incidence

Psychological stress due to coronavirus measures, secondary diseases of a COVID-19 infection (e.g. post-COVID syndrome (PCS) or myocarditis) and negative consequences of COVID-19 vaccinations are just some of the health consequences for children and adolescents of the COVID pandemic. However, these consequences are not always clearly distinguishable from one another. For example, the symptoms of PCS overlap with those of psychological stress. This problem of differentiation is not only a challenge for healthcare itself, but also for systematic research in the sense of health services research.

COVYOUTHdata aims to improve the data situation on the type, frequency and risk factors of the individual consequences of the pandemic in children and adolescents. The focus is on the development and validation of a case definition for a PCS in claims data; a screening algorithm in the sense of §25b SGB V; the determination of the frequency and risk factors for a PCS and the investigation of possible undesirable vaccination consequences and subjective benefit-risk analyses.

The plan is to analyze various data sets: The development of preliminary case definitions, the investigation of adverse vaccination effects and risk factors will be carried out at the Health Data Lab (FDZ-Gesundheit). To investigate the protective effect of a COVID-19 vaccination, claims data will be linked to the vaccination data. A survey is planned to validate the case definition and the subjective risk-benefit analysis.

In addition to project and data management, the PMV research group is primarily responsible for developing and validating the case definitions and analyzing the claims data.

Duration: 2025–2028
Project partners: PMV forschungsgruppe | Abteilung für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) | Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (PEI) | Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, Universitätsklinikum Köln (UKK) | Abteilung für Kinderheilkunde, Pädiatrie, (UKK) | Zentrum für Psychosoziale Medizin, Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Familienambulanz, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) | Kinderklinik, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE)
Methods: Statistical Analyses
Topics: Disease incidence, Population health
Data: Data linkage, Data preparation, Claims data