Principal Investigator: Dr. Victoria Kirsh

Affiliation: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research

Start Year: 2022

The linkage of epidemiologic data with administrative health datasets represents a powerful means to contribute to our understanding of who is most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection and severe infection. We will quantify the risk of infection compared to non-infection by sex, age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. We will also quantify the association between risk of severe infection (i.e., requiring hospitalization) compared to mild infection (among those who tested positive for coronavirus infection) and: i) underlying health conditions, ii) medication use, iii) smoking, vaping, cannabis history, iv) physical activity, v) body mass index, vi) ethnicity, and evaluate whether these associations are modified by the dominant viral variant circulating at the time of infection.