Dataset Information

Burden and prevalence of risk factors for severe COVID-19 in the ageing European population - a SHARE-based analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

International health authorities suggest that individuals aged 65 years and above and people with underlying comorbidities such as hypertension, chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity are at increased risk of severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19); however, the prevalence of risk factors is unknown in many countries. Therefore, we aimed to describe the distribution of these risk factors across Europe.

Subject and methods

Prevalence of risk factors for severe COVID-19 was identified based on interviews from 73,274 Europeans aged 50+ participating in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in 2017. Burden of disease was estimated using population data from Eurostat.

Results

A total of 75.3% of the study population (corresponding to approx. 60 million European men and 71 million women) had at least one risk factor for severe COVID-19, 45.9% (approx. 36 million men and 43 million women) had at least two factors, and 21.2% (approx. 17 million men and 20 million women) had at least three risk factors. The prevalence of underlying medical conditions ranged from 4.5% for cancer to 41.4% for hypertension, and the region-specific prevalence of having at least three risk factors ranged from 18.9% in Northern Europe to 24.6% in Eastern Europe.

Conclusions

Information about the prevalence of risk factors might help authorities to identify the most vulnerable subpopulations with multiple risk factors of severe COVID-19 and thus to decide appropriate strategies to mitigate the pandemic.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-021-01537-7.

SUBMITTER: Ahrenfeldt LJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8036158 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Background: Diversity in response on exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 may be related to the innate immune response in the elderly. The mucin MUC5B is an important component of the innate immune response and expression levels are associated with the MUC5B promoter polymorphism, rs35705950. The high expressing T-allele is a risk allele for the non-infectious aging lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). We investigated if MUC5B rs35705950 associates with severe COVID-19. Methods: In this retrospective candidate gene case-control study we recruited 108 Dutch patients (69% male, median age 66 years, 77% white) requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 (22% ICU stay, 24% died). For validation, genotypes were obtained from the UK-Biobank (n = 436, 57% male, median age 70 years, 27% died), for replication data from the severe COVID-19 GWAS group from Italy (n = 835) and Spain (n = 775) was used, each with a control cohort (n = 356,735, n = 1,255, n = 950, respectively). MUC5B association analysis was performed including adjustment for age and sex. Results: The rs35705950 T-allele frequency was significantly lower in Dutch white patients (n = 83) than in controls (0.04 vs. 0.10; p = 0.02). This was validated in the UK biobank cohort (0.08 vs. 0.11; p = 0.001). While age and sex differed significantly between cases and control, comparable results were obtained with age and sex as confounding variables in a multivariate analysis. The association was replicated in the Italian (p = 0.04), and Spanish (p = 0.03) case-control cohorts. Meta-analysis showed a negative association for the T-allele with COVID-19 (OR = 0.75 (CI: 0.67-0.85); p = 6.63 × 10-6). Conclusions: This study shows that carriage of the T-allele of MUC5B rs35705950 confers protection from development of severe COVID-19. Because the T-allele is a known risk allele for IPF, this study provides further evidence for the existence of trade-offs between optimal mucin expression levels in the aging lung.