Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) adult study protocol: Rationale, objectives, and design
- PMID: 37352211
- PMCID: PMC10289397
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286297
Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) adult study protocol: Rationale, objectives, and design
Abstract
Importance: SARS-CoV-2 infection can result in ongoing, relapsing, or new symptoms or other health effects after the acute phase of infection; termed post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), or long COVID. The characteristics, prevalence, trajectory and mechanisms of PASC are ill-defined. The objectives of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Multi-site Observational Study of PASC in Adults (RECOVER-Adult) are to: (1) characterize PASC prevalence; (2) characterize the symptoms, organ dysfunction, natural history, and distinct phenotypes of PASC; (3) identify demographic, social and clinical risk factors for PASC onset and recovery; and (4) define the biological mechanisms underlying PASC pathogenesis.
Methods: RECOVER-Adult is a combined prospective/retrospective cohort currently planned to enroll 14,880 adults aged ≥18 years. Eligible participants either must meet WHO criteria for suspected, probable, or confirmed infection; or must have evidence of no prior infection. Recruitment occurs at 86 sites in 33 U.S. states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, via facility- and community-based outreach. Participants complete quarterly questionnaires about symptoms, social determinants, vaccination status, and interim SARS-CoV-2 infections. In addition, participants contribute biospecimens and undergo physical and laboratory examinations at approximately 0, 90 and 180 days from infection or negative test date, and yearly thereafter. Some participants undergo additional testing based on specific criteria or random sampling. Patient representatives provide input on all study processes. The primary study outcome is onset of PASC, measured by signs and symptoms. A paradigm for identifying PASC cases will be defined and updated using supervised and unsupervised learning approaches with cross-validation. Logistic regression and proportional hazards regression will be conducted to investigate associations between risk factors, onset, and resolution of PASC symptoms.
Discussion: RECOVER-Adult is the first national, prospective, longitudinal cohort of PASC among US adults. Results of this study are intended to inform public health, spur clinical trials, and expand treatment options.
Registration: NCT05172024.
Copyright: © 2023 Horwitz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Conflict of interest statement
I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Helen Chu reported consulting for Merck, GSK, Pfizer, Ellume, Janssen, Vindico CME, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and receiving research support from Gates Ventures, Ellume, and Sanofi Pasteur. She also serves as a co-investigator on studies funded by Pfizer, Novavax, and GSK. Maged Costantine reported receiving grant support for work not related to RECOVER work/publications from Baxter International and Siemens Healthcare and personal consulting fees not related to this paper from Progenity, Quidel Ortho, and Siemens Healthcare. Kristine Erlandson reported research funding from Gilead Sciences and consulting payments from Gilead Sciences, Merck, and ViiV Pharmaceuticals, all paid to the University of Colorado. Emily Gallagher reported consulting for Novartis, Flare Therapeutics and Seagen. Edward Gardner reported research support (clinical trials) from Gilead Sciences, ViiV Healthcare, and Cepheid. Jason Goldman reported research support from Gilead, Eli Lilly and Regeneron; grants from Gilead, Merck (BARDA); personal fees for consulting from Gilead, Eli Lilly; and non-financial support from Adaptive Biotechnologies and Labcorp/Monogram Biosciences outside the submitted work. Timothy Heinrich reported grant support from Merck Inc. and consulting fees from Roche. Rachel Hess reported serving as Data Safety Monitoring Board member for Astellas Pharmaceuticals unrelated to the current work. Leora Horwitz reported being a member of the National Academy of Medicine Committee on the Long-Term Health Effects Stemming from COVID-19 and Implications for the Social Security Administration. Priscilla Hsue reported receiving honoraria from Gilead and Merck unrelated to study topic, receiving study drug from Regeneron unrelated to study topic, and receiving a research grant from Novartis. Judith James reported OMRF has licensed her IP to Progentec Biosciences, has received grant support from Progentec Biosciences, and serves on Advisory Committees to Glaxo Smith Klein, Merck and Novartis. Arthur Kim reports providing educational materials to Clinical Care Options and UpToDate and serving on a Data Safety Monitoring board for Kintor Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. Bruce Levy reported serving as a consultant for AstraZeneca, Entrinsic Biosciences, Gossamer Bio and Nocion Therapeutics and receiving research support from Amgen, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Pieris Pharmaceuticals, SRA and Sanofi unrelated to the current work. Vincent Marconi reported receiving grants from NIH during the conduct of the study and grants from NIH, Veteran Affairs, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; grants, personal fees, nonfinancial support, and other from Lilly and Gilead; grants and personal fees from ViiV; and nonfinancial support from Bayer outside the submitted work. Grace McComsey reported serving as consultant for Merck, Gilead, ViiV, Janssen and have received research support from Pfizer, Vanda, Genentech, Roche, Redhill and Cognivue. Torri Metz reported being a site PI and a participant in the medical advisory board for the planning of a Pfizer clinical trial of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in pregnancy. She also reported being a site PI for a Pfizer study evaluating the pharmacokinetics of Paxlovid in pregnant people with COVID-19. Janet Mullington reported support for investigator-initiated research by "Open Medicine Foundation and the Patient-Led Research Collaborative" Princess Ogbogu reported research support from Astrazeneca, GSK, Blueprint medical; advisory board for Astrazeneca, GSK, Sanofi, Kalvista; and consulting for Astrazeneca, GSK Sairam Parthasarathy reported research funding to Institution from Sergey Brin foundation of COVID and Long-COVID research. Michael Peluso reported consulting fees from Gilead Sciences and AstraZeneca, and service on data safety monitoring board for American Gene Technologies. Sean Quigley reported service on speaker Board for Servier, Alnylam, Agios; service on advisory board for Recordati, Alexion. Franz Rischard reported research support from NIH/NHLBI, United Therapeutics, Acceleron/Merck, Janssen, Insmed, Aerovate, and Bayer; and consulting/advisory compensation from Acceleron and Bayer. Nadine Rouphael reported being a consultant for ICON and EMMES as a safety consultant for clinical trials; service on the advisory boards for Moderna; funds to institution from Sanofi, Lilly, Merck, Quidel and Pfizer. PJ Utz reported stock ownership of Gilead and PI of biomarker studies for Pfizer STOP-PASC paxlovid trial Juan Wisnivesky received receiving consulting honorarium from Sanofi, Banook, Prospero, PPD and Atea and research grants from Sanofi, Regeneron, Axella, and Arnold Consultants.
Update of
-
Researching COVID to enhance recovery (RECOVER) pediatric study protocol: Rationale, objectives and design.medRxiv [Preprint]. 2023 May 12:2023.04.27.23289228. doi: 10.1101/2023.04.27.23289228. medRxiv. 2023. Update in: PLoS One. 2023 Jun 23;18(6):e0286297. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286297. PMID: 37214806 Free PMC article. Updated. Preprint.
Similar articles
-
Researching COVID to enhance recovery (RECOVER) pregnancy study: Rationale, objectives and design.PLoS One. 2023 Dec 21;18(12):e0285351. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285351. eCollection 2023. PLoS One. 2023. PMID: 38128008 Free PMC article.
-
Researching COVID to enhance recovery (RECOVER) tissue pathology study protocol: Rationale, objectives, and design.PLoS One. 2024 Jan 10;19(1):e0285645. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285645. eCollection 2024. PLoS One. 2024. PMID: 38198481 Free PMC article.
-
Post-Acute Sequelae of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) After Infection During Pregnancy.Obstet Gynecol. 2024 Sep 1;144(3):411-420. doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000005670. Epub 2024 Jul 11. Obstet Gynecol. 2024. PMID: 38991216
-
Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 in Children.Pediatrics. 2024 Mar 1;153(3):e2023062570. doi: 10.1542/peds.2023-062570. Pediatrics. 2024. PMID: 38321938 Free PMC article. Review.
-
Therapeutic trials for long COVID-19: A call to action from the interventions taskforce of the RECOVER initiative.Front Immunol. 2023 Mar 9;14:1129459. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1129459. eCollection 2023. Front Immunol. 2023. PMID: 36969241 Free PMC article. Review.
Cited by
-
Quality improvement of a community-engaged authorship system: lessons learned from the RECOVER initiative.BMC Health Serv Res. 2025 Jul 3;25(1):919. doi: 10.1186/s12913-025-12914-3. BMC Health Serv Res. 2025. PMID: 40611083 Free PMC article.
-
COLA-GLM: collaborative one-shot and lossless algorithms of generalized linear models for decentralized observational healthcare data.NPJ Digit Med. 2025 Jul 15;8(1):442. doi: 10.1038/s41746-025-01781-1. NPJ Digit Med. 2025. PMID: 40664765 Free PMC article.
-
Incidence and Prevalence of Post-COVID-19 Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Report from the Observational RECOVER-Adult Study.J Gen Intern Med. 2025 Apr;40(5):1085-1094. doi: 10.1007/s11606-024-09290-9. Epub 2025 Jan 13. J Gen Intern Med. 2025. PMID: 39804551 Free PMC article.
-
Researching COVID to enhance recovery (RECOVER) pregnancy study: Rationale, objectives and design.PLoS One. 2023 Dec 21;18(12):e0285351. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285351. eCollection 2023. PLoS One. 2023. PMID: 38128008 Free PMC article.
-
Preliminary evaluation of a mindfulness intervention program in women with long COVID dysautonomia symptoms.Brain Behav Immun Health. 2025 Feb 11;44:100963. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2025.100963. eCollection 2025 Mar. Brain Behav Immun Health. 2025. PMID: 40040864 Free PMC article.
References
-
- World Health Organization. WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard 2023 [cited 2023 9 March]. https://covid19.who.int/.
-
- Matt Bosworth PP, Daniel Ayoubkhani. Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 2 February 2023: Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom; 2023 [cited 2023 3 Feb 2023]. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/....
Publication types
MeSH terms
Associated data
Grants and funding
- P30 AG072946/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States
- UG1 HD027869/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States
- R00 AG065419/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States
- K23 AI157875/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States
- UG1 HD087230/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States
- U54 GM115516/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States
- K12 HL143961/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States
- S10 OD030463/OD/NIH HHS/United States
- OT2 HL161841/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States
- OT2 HL156812/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States
- UL1 TR002538/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States
- UG1 HD027915/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States
- UG1 HD087192/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States
- OT2 HL161847/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States
- L30 AI126521/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States
- K23 AI146268/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States
- UG1 HD034208/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States
- P20 GM109089/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States
- UG1 HD040544/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States
- S10 OD026880/OD/NIH HHS/United States
- U54 MD007601/MD/NIMHD NIH HHS/United States
- U54 GM115428/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States
- L30 AI147159/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Medical
Molecular Biology Databases
Miscellaneous