Lifelines COVID-19 cohort: investigating COVID-19 infection and its health and societal impacts in a Dutch population-based cohort

  1. Katherine Mc Intyre
  2. Pauline Lanting
  3. Patrick Deelen
  4. Henry H Wiersma
  5. Judith M Vonk
  6. Anil P S Ori
  7. Soesma A Jankipersadsing
  8. Robert Warmerdam
  9. Irene van Blokland
  10. Floranne Boulogne
  11. Marjolein X L Dijkema
  12. Johanna C Herkert
  13. Annique Claringbould
  14. Olivier Bakker
  15. Esteban A Lopera Maya
  16. Ute Bültmann
  17. Alexandra Zhernakova
  18. Sijmen A Reijneveld
  19. Elianne Zijlstra
  20. Morris A Swertz
  21. Sandra Brouwer
  22. Raun van Ooijen
  23. Viola Angelini
  24. Louise H Dekker
  25. Anna Sijtsma
  26. Sicco A Scherjon
  27. Cisca Wijmenga
  28. Jackie A M Dekens
  29. Jochen Mierau
  30. H Marike Boezen
  31. Lude Franke

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Abstract

The Lifelines COVID-19 cohort was set up to assess the psychological and societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate potential risk factors for COVID-19 within the Lifelines prospective population cohort.

Participants

Participants were recruited from the 140 000 eligible participants of Lifelines and the Lifelines NEXT birth cohort, who are all residents of the three northern provinces of the Netherlands. Participants filled out detailed questionnaires about their physical and mental health and experiences on a weekly basis starting in late March 2020, and the cohort consists of everyone who filled in at least one questionnaire in the first 8 weeks of the project.

Findings to date

>71 000 unique participants responded to the questionnaires at least once during the first 8 weeks, with >22 000 participants responding to seven questionnaires. Compiled questionnaire results are continuously updated and shared with the public through the Corona Barometer website. Early results included a clear signal that younger people living alone were experiencing greater levels of loneliness due to lockdown, and subsequent results showed the easing of anxiety as lockdown was eased in June 2020.

Future plans

Questionnaires were sent on a (bi)weekly basis starting in March 2020 and on a monthly basis starting July 2020, with plans for new questionnaire rounds to continue through 2020 and early 2021. Questionnaire frequency can be increased again for subsequent waves of infections. Cohort data will be used to address how the COVID-19 pandemic developed in the northern provinces of the Netherlands, which environmental and genetic risk factors predict disease susceptibility and severity and the psychological and societal impacts of the crisis. Cohort data are linked to the extensive health, lifestyle and sociodemographic data held for these participants by Lifelines, a 30-year project that started in 2006, and to data about participants held in national databases.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.19.20135426: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-044474
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.19.20135426v1 on medRxiv