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Lookup NU author(s): Dr David Sinclair, Ayu Maharani, Dr Daniel StowORCiD, Dr Claire WelshORCiD, Professor Fiona MatthewsORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2021 Sinclair 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.Background COVID-19 vaccination in many countries, including England, has been prioritised primarily by age. However, people of the same age can have very different health statuses. Frailty is a commonly used metric of health and has been found to be more strongly associated with mortality than age among COVID-19 inpatients. Methods We compared the number of first vaccine doses administered across the 135 NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) of England to both the over 50 population and the estimated frail population in each area. Area-based frailty estimates were generated using the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA), a national survey of older people. We also compared the number of doses to the number of people with other risk factors associated with COVID- 19: Atrial fibrillation, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, learning disabilities, obesity and smoking status. Results We estimate that after 79 days of the vaccine program, across all Clinical Commissioning Group areas, the number of people who received a first vaccine per frail person ranged from 4.4 (95% CI 4.0-4.8) and 20.1 (95% CI 18.3-21.9). The prevalences of other risk factors were also poorly associated with the prevalence of vaccination across England. Conclusions Vaccination with age-based priority created area-based inequities in the number of doses administered relative to the number of people who are frail or have other risk factors associated with COVID-19. As frailty has previously been found to be more strongly associated with mortality than age for COVID-19 inpatients, an age-based priority system may increase the risk of mortality in some areas during the vaccine roll-out period. Authorities planning COVID-19 vaccination programmes should consider the disadvantages of an age-based priority system.
Author(s): Sinclair DR, Maharani A, Stow D, Welsh CE, Matthews FE
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: PLoS ONE
Year: 2021
Volume: 16
Issue: 11
Online publication date: 15/11/2021
Acceptance date: 29/10/2021
Date deposited: 01/12/2021
ISSN (electronic): 1932-6203
Publisher: Public Library of Science
URL: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259990
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259990
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