Discover what the latest science from RECOVER means for our ability to understand, diagnose, prevent, and treat Long COVID.
This page contains descriptions of findings from RECOVER research studies. These descriptions use plain language and a format that is easy to understand.
If you want to learn more about the scientific discoveries described here, you can also browse and search the complete list of RECOVER Publications.
RECOVER researchers wanted to learn if a computer program could identify if people have Long COVID based on electronic health records (EHRs). They used EHRs from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C). Researchers created and used a computer program to compare people with Long COVID to those who didn’t have Long COVID (based on whether or not people had a visit to a Long COVID clinic in their EHR). The computer program looked for patterns in people’s symptoms, health conditions, and other data.
The researchers concluded their computer program could be used to identify people with possible Long COVID. The computer program found that people with Long COVID have patterns in their health care visits, age groups, symptoms and health conditions, and the medicines they take. This could help connect people with Long COVID to health care or invite them to join research studies.
Heart problems after having COVID-19 and after getting an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine
RECOVER researchers used data from over 15 million people’s electronic health records (EHR) to compare how many people have heart problems after having COVID-19 or getting an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. They used EHR data from 40 health systems in PCORnet, the National Patient Centered Clinical Research Network.
Researchers found that the chance of having heart problems is higher after having COVID-19 than after getting an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for men and women in all age groups. The overall chance of having heart problems after having COVID-19 or getting an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was very low across all ages and genders. These results support the continued use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for all people ages 5 and older, who meet the vaccine criteria.