Quantifying the Enduring Health and Employment Effects of COVID-19

• In Event: Lightning Session: Health Policy & Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy

Abstract

Long COVID, a term collectively referring to a wide range of persistent health complications from the acute infection, are estimated to affect as many as one in five COVID-19 survivors. It can impair individuals’ ability to work and potentially trigger life-long disabilities. Understanding the long-term implications of COVID-19 on health and employment is of first-order importance for public health policy and many safety net programs as long COVID patients are potential future beneficiaries of these programs. Accordingly, long COVID has received substantial attention from both sides of the political spectrum with billions in congressional funding allocated for research.

A major gap in our understanding of this condition is the lack of consensus in defining long COVID which has no single objective medical diagnostic, in contrast to other testable conditions like diabetes. This paper uses administrative medical claims data to quantify the health and employment trajectories of individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 and compare them to those hospitalized with other severe acute respiratory infections (ARI) in an event study setup.

We find that: (1) The health impacts of COVID-19 are largely similar to those of ARI, with a few exceptions: long-term diagnosis rates for chronic fatigue and sleep disorders are higher for COVID-19 than for ARI and the results are largely driven by younger adults. (2) Relative to coworkers, the probability of employment drops precipitously and immediately after discharge for individuals hospitalized with ARI, but starts to decrease only in the third month after discharge for those hospitalized with COVID-19 which can perhaps be explained by increased availability of workplace accommodations (e.g., work from home) during the pandemic. And (3), COVID-19 affects the young, working-age population, who are generally less susceptible to respiratory complications, far more than ARI. This is perhaps the more concerning feature of COVID-19.

Our results may be surprising given that the popular discourse on long COVID emphasizes its peculiarity. The insight that long COVID does not differ markedly from the sequela of ARI indicates that we can use what we already know about ARI to quantify and forecast the burden on the healthcare system and social programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Medicare. Furthermore, COVID-19 is significantly more concerning than ARI because it strikingly affects younger and healthier adults who are generally less susceptible to severe respiratory infections. This second insight has important ramifications on the quality of life for many young individuals and the sustainability of social programs. For instance, SSDI may see an increasing number of younger applicants. This paper offers new insights to help contextualize the impact of long COVID on many public programs.

Author

• Adibah binti Abdulhadi, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author