Journal article icon

Journal article

Characteristics and outcomes of 627 044 COVID-19 patients living with and without obesity in the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom

Abstract:

Background

A detailed characterization of patients with COVID-19 living with obesity has not yet been undertaken. We aimed to describe and compare the demographics, medical conditions, and outcomes of COVID-19 patients living with obesity (PLWO) to those of patients living without obesity.

Methods

We conducted a cohort study based on outpatient/inpatient care and claims data from January to June 2020 from Spain, the UK, and the US. We used six databases standardized to the OMOP common data model. We defined two non-mutually exclusive cohorts of patients diagnosed and/or hospitalized with COVID-19; patients were followed from index date to 30 days or death. We report the frequency of demographics, prior medical conditions, and 30-days outcomes (hospitalization, events, and death) by obesity status.

Results

We included 627 044 (Spain: 122 058, UK: 2336, and US: 502 650) diagnosed and 160 013 (Spain: 18 197, US: 141 816) hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The prevalence of obesity was higher among patients hospitalized (39.9%, 95%CI: 39.8−40.0) than among those diagnosed with COVID-19 (33.1%; 95%CI: 33.0−33.2). In both cohorts, PLWO were more often female. Hospitalized PLWO were younger than patients without obesity. Overall, COVID-19 PLWO were more likely to have prior medical conditions, present with cardiovascular and respiratory events during hospitalization, or require intensive services compared to COVID-19 patients without obesity.

Conclusion

We show that PLWO differ from patients without obesity in a wide range of medical conditions and present with more severe forms of COVID-19, with higher hospitalization rates and intensive services requirements. These findings can help guiding preventive strategies of COVID-19 infection and complications and generating hypotheses for causal inference studies.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

Actions


Access Document


Publisher copy:
10.1038/s41366-021-00893-4

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
NDORMS
Role:
Author


Publisher:
Springer Nature
Journal:
International Journal of Obesity More from this journal
Volume:
45
Issue:
11
Pages:
2347–2357
Publication date:
2021-07-15
Acceptance date:
2021-06-24
DOI:
EISSN:
1476-5497
ISSN:
0307-0565


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1185214
Local pid:
pubs:1185214
Deposit date:
2021-07-06

Terms of use



Views and Downloads






If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record

TO TOP