UGA study: Long COVID-19 is costing Americans money
The COVID-19 pandemic panic that characterized the early 2020s may be gone, but the SARS-CoV-2 virus is continuing to wreak havoc on some Americans’ finances, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.
Special Photo via UGA TodayBy Leigh Hataway
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ATHENS – The COVID-19 pandemic panic that characterized the early 2020s may be gone. But the SARS-CoV-2 virus is continuing to wreak havoc on some Americans’ finances, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.
The researchers found that long COVID-19 is making it harder for people to pay their bills, buy groceries and keep their utilities on.
The study found that for individuals in the lowest income bracket, having long COVID increased the likelihood of food insecurity by 10 percentage points. They also were at higher risk of losing important utility services due to not being able to pay their bills.
“COVID is still going on,” Ishtiaque Fazlul, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in both UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs and UGA’s College of Public Health, said. “People’s financial well-being is being affected by long COVID. That’s something we should care about.”
The study suggests much of that financial hardship is the result of lost jobs and reduced working hours. And the researchers found that the negative economic effects of the illness are present regardless of socioeconomic status.
Having more flexibility in both hours and work-from-home policies could help long COVID sufferers keep their jobs and health care coverage. Increasing job security, access to credit, improving access to health care services to help patients manage symptoms of the condition also could make a real difference.
Published in Health Services Research, the study was co-authored by Mahmud Khan, a professor in UGA’s College of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management, and Biplab Kumar Datta, an assistant professor at Augusta University.
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