New findings from a US survey from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) scientists concludes that 6.9% of US adults—or almost 18 million adults—have ever had long COVID as of early 2023, confirming the results of previous surveys.
AHRQ fielded the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to a sample of 17,418 adults, which extrapolates to 259 million adults. The research was published late last week in JAMA.
Sex, age, and racial risk factors
A total of 8,275 respondents reported a history of COVID-19 infection, of whom 1,202 said they had long-COVID symptoms, extrapolating to 17.8 million (6.9%) of all Americans.
Across age-groups, women were more likely than men to report having long COVID (8.6% vs 5.1%). Young and older adults were less likely than adults aged 35 to 64 years to report long COVID, which the authors said may be due to younger people's generally better health and high rates of COVID-19 vaccination and low COVID-19 rates among older people.
These findings support the CDC’s definition that long COVID 'represents many potentially overlapping entities, likely with different biological causes and different sets of risk factors and outcomes.'
White and Hispanic adults had higher rates of long COVID than Black and Asian adults. Asians had the lowest long-COVID rate and the highest rate of COVID-19 booster receipt. Black respondents had the second-lowest incidence of both COVID-19 and long COVID.
Recipients of COVID-19 boosters reported lower rates of long COVID (5.8%) than those who had received only the primary vaccine series (8.7%) or had never been vaccinated (8.4%). "These findings suggest that booster shots may enhance protection against long COVID, possibly because booster shots reduce the risk of severe COVID-19," the study authors wrote. "MEPS did not find that booster shots were associated with a reduced risk of having had COVID-19 in general."
Results similar to those of other surveys
Long-COVID rates didn't differ significantly by household income level. Respondents who had certain chronic conditions, including obesity, reported higher long-COVID rates than other adults, with those with emphysema or chronic bronchitis reporting the highest rates (14% and 17%, respectively).
The results were comparable to those of the 2022 National Health Interview Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which found long-COVID rates of 6.9% and 6.4%, respectively, the researchers noted.
"These findings support the CDC’s definition that long COVID 'represents many potentially overlapping entities, likely with different biological causes and different sets of risk factors and outcomes,'" they concluded.
