AUTHOR=Allen Hester , Hassell Katie , Rawlinson Christopher , Pullen Owen , Campbell Colin , Jödicke Annika M. , Català Martí , Prats-Uribe Albert , Dabrera Gavin , Prieto-Alhambra Daniel , Campos-Matos Ines 

TITLE=Development of the ECHOES national dataset: a resource for monitoring post-acute and long-term COVID-19 health outcomes in England

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1513508

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2025.1513508

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=IntroductionElectronic health records can be used to understand the diverse presentation of post-acute and long-term health outcomes following COVID-19 infection. In England, the UK Health Security Agency, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, has created the Evaluation of post-acute COVID-19 Health Outcomes (ECHOES) dataset to monitor how an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection episode is associated with changes in the risk of health outcomes that are recorded in routinely collected health data.MethodsThe ECHOES dataset is a national-level dataset combining national-level surveillance, administrative, and healthcare data. Entity resolution and data linkage methods are used to create a cohort of individuals who have tested positive and negative for SARS-CoV-2 in England throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside information on a range of health outcomes, including diagnosed clinical conditions, mortality, and risk factor information.ResultsThe dataset contains comprehensive COVID-19 testing data and demographic, socio-economic, and health-related information for 44 million individuals who tested for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and April 2022, representing 15,720,286 individuals who tested positive and 42,351,016 individuals who tested negative.DiscussionWith the application of epidemiological and statistical methods, this dataset allows a range of clinical outcomes to be investigated, including pre-specified health conditions and mortality. Furthermore, understanding potential determinants of health outcomes can be gained, including pre-existing health conditions, acute disease characteristics, SARS-CoV-2 vaccination status, and genomic variants.